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Vigil on Jan.30 for the Feast of The Encounter
The Encounter is moved to Jan 31st with
Matins at 9:00 AM followed by Divine Liturgy at 10:00 AM

Only Divine Liturgy at 10:00 AM on Feb. 7th

Vigil for Forgiveness Sunday at 5:00 PM on 13th Saturday
Matins at 9:00 AM followed by Divine Liturgy at 10:00 AMon Sunday Feb. 14th
Lent begins at Forgivesness Vespers at  5:00 PM Sunday

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Reflections of a Monk

Publican & Pharisee: spring cleaning of the soul

This Sunday the pre-Lenten season begins with the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. Great Lent offers us each year another opportunity to search within ourselves for those better impulses that we know God has planted there. It’s a time of taking stock to uncover hidden cashes of unattended angers, hurts, misdeeds, missed opportunities for change and growth and to bring these things to God in prayer. Its spring cleaning of the soul. The church helps us by offering services that emphasize repentance and reconciliation. This is work and it needs to be done all the time, but now we get some extra tools to help us make progress and we are encouraged to take the time to use these tools. The most powerful tool of self examination is prayer. Prayer begins with each one of us in those quiet spaces where we attempt to put the daily tasks aside, quiet our interior noises and seek the presence of God. This may be in church, in our homes, by a lake or stream, in the woods or our garden or in winter, walking in the quiet of a snow covered field or park. When we finally find our special place, how do we use that time?

In this morning’s gospel we see a scene in the temple where two individuals are engaged in prayer as they understand it. The Pharisee, a much maligned character in scripture, is praying in a manner that was well within the rabbinic tradition. Often his prayer is criticized as being an example of pride and conceit, particularly in contrast to that of the publican. And yet, all that he was saying was true, even to the extent that he was glad not to be like the publican. Before we are too quick to condemn the Pharisee, we might do well to examine our own thoughts and actions to see how often we compare ourselves and our “good deeds” to the “unsatisfactory deeds” of others. How often we find ourselves thinking or saying that others don’t quite measure up to our high standards!

Meanwhile, the situation of the publican can also be misinterpreted. His unsavory reputation is not without justification. The publican was a tax collector who worked for a foreign occupation government. He made his profit by placing surcharges on top of the taxes. It was a corrupt system and he was a willing participant in it. Jesus is not telling us it is better to be bad so that we will have something to pray about and be sorry for. After all whenever Jesus heals someone he often says: “go and sin no more.” But Jesus also knows that we are all far from perfect and we are all in need of forgiveness: the publican and the Pharisee. Lent is a time to come to terms with our true self, take that to God and ask for help to amend our ways where necessary.

As one commentator put it, the publican’s prayer is a prayer to God, the Pharisee’s prayer is a prayer to himself. It’s not that it’s not prayer, but rather that it is the kind of prayer that does us no good. Jesus is trying to show us a different approach to prayer, one that lays bare before God that part of our inner reality that needs healing. In this the publican gets it right. He doesn’t even need to be specific, God already knows our inmost secrets and needs. The publican is simply acknowledging what God already knows, that he needs to be forgiven. He accepts his reality and is open to God’s healing power.

Another way of understanding the publican’s prayer is as a surrender to God. Surrender can sound like being passive or indifferent and yet it really means accepting the whole reality of this present moment as the starting point for the rest of one’s life. We are often resistant to acknowledging our present reality due to some hidden pain or fear. If we look deeply into our refusal or resistance and discover the pain or fear beneath it we have then taken the first step away from our paralysis and toward an initiative to let go of refusal and to allow suffering to flow out of us. This move from denial to acceptance lets God in.[1]

In Lent we sing a hymn that begins: “Open the gates of repentance for me O giver of life.” This is a classic prayer of surrender. To open a gate is to remove a barrier of resistance. But this prayer also acknowledges another important dimension of the act of surrender: asking God to help us achieve it. It’s a prayer that says I need your help God, I can’t do it alone. And to acknowledge this is to truly arrive at the acceptance of our present reality. Let us keep this prayer close to our hearts as we begin this year’s Lenten journey.

Christ is in our midst.

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