Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 30, 2019
Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Today’s parable reveals Jesus’ desire to evangelize our minds, reconciling us to God by healing our thoughts. The Pharisee fails to connect with God because of the arrogant thoughts that constitute his prayer. On the other hand, God reconciles the tax collector to himself precisely because of his humble interior disposition. I am often painfully aware of the times that I do evil. But I am less frequently aware of how my mental habits and patterns of thought dispose me towards doing evil or good.
Preparing for midterms recently revealed to me how my patterns of thought dispose me to distrust God. Strangely, I found myself feeling consistently anxious about my schoolwork. I really do believe in God’s providence, and I say that I trust in God. But I noticed that my schoolwork was consuming my mind. Even while not working, I was spending most of my free moments thinking about all of the work that I had left. It struck me: if I only ever think about my work, then I will inevitably worry. If I never think about God’s concrete gifts, I will never trust.
But how do I transform this pattern?
Jesus offers a healing balm for our anxious mental habits in the prayer of the tax collector. The ancient Church developed a simple devotion, based on his words, called the Jesus Prayer: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Instead of fixating on work, I try to fill my mind with the gentle repetition of this prayer, a first effort at evangelizing my own mind. Slowly, the grace of God has begun to reform my thoughts around gratitude, rather than anxiety.
In the end, I did indeed survive midterms, and this time, with a little more peace.
Prayer
Thank you for your gift of this season of Lent, Lord, and for the gentle challenges to personal growth that come through your Son’s word. Grant us the grace to continue loving you and our neighbors so that we may experience the fullness of Easter joy. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka was a Franciscan nun condemned to death under the Nazis for her opposition to the regime.
Blessed Maria was born in 1894 in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was baptized Helena. Helena's father was a shoemaker. When she was very young, Helena's family moved to Vienna, the capital, and she grew up in the bustling city.
As a young woman, at the exciting turn of the twentieth century, Helena found work in Vienna first as a salesclerk, and then as a nurse. While working as a nurse in the hospital, she came into contact with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. Despite being surrounded by the glamor and comforts of city life as a young woman, Maria was attracted to these religious sisters' simple and self-giving way of life. Helena joined their community at the age of 20, taking the name Maria Restituta after an early Christian martyr.
As the brightness of the new century faded into the horror of war, Maria continued to serve as a nurse in the hospital during World War I. Eventually, through her skill and dedication, Maria became the head surgical nurse at her hospital. When the nationalist-socialist regime came to power, in the inter-war years of the 1930's, Maria Restituta was not afraid to speak out against it. When the hospital built a new wing, Maria placed a crucifix inside every room. The Nazi government demanded that she remove the crucifixes, but Maria refused. Clearly, a principled, stubborn woman was going to be an obstacle, so the Nazis made up their minds to remove her. The Nazis wanted to arrest her but were prevented from doing so immediately because Maria was so indispensable to the hospital.
A doctor who supported the Nazis eventually betrayed Maria and handed her over to them on a false charge. In 1942, as Maria was coming out of an operation, she was arrested by the Nazi police and sentenced to death for treason. Maria was given the choice to renounce her religious community and thus to spare her life. She declined.
During more than a year in prison, she cared for other prisoners. In one of her letters from that time, she wrote, “It does not matter how far we are separated from everything, no matter what is taken from us: the faith that we carry in our hearts is something no one can take from us. In this way, we build an altar in our own hearts.”
The Nazis beheaded Maria on March 30, 1943—she was only 48.
Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka, staunch in the face of Nazi occupation and a culture of death—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of Bl. Maria Restituta Kafka is in the public domain. Last accessed November 15, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.
