The Pharisee was not justified because he went in with a bad intention.
He went in to declare to God his righteousness, and hence he showed himself not to be thankful for the righteousness he had received.
For if we are righteous, the Lord knows, because we have received it from him, he does not need to be reminded.
The tax collector, on the other hand, was a sinful man, and he knew he was not a righteous man,
and yet he would not come in and take a position of boldness before God, but one of humility.
Indeed, it says,
He would not even raise his eyes to heaven.
And so he showed himself truly humble, which is the requirement for all those who really wish to receive righteousness.
Indeed, he showed himself to be one of those who took heed to the very first words that the Lord would preach in his public ministry.
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And so it is not our proclamations of our righteousness that declares us to be righteous,
but it is our actions, that is, our deeds.
And among these, the primary deed must be the deed of humility.
We must be thoroughly convinced that we can do nothing righteous on our own,
but that all the good we do, we do by the grace of God, and hence it is ultimately God's good.
That is why it is not right, like the Pharisee, to usurp to himself his good deeds.
For if he was not greedy or an adulterer or dishonest,
then it was not to him to accrue those things to himself and to give himself the credit.
For if he did all those things, he did them by the grace of God.
And yet, in an instant, he would wipe out all his good works by the pride in which he would come before almighty God
to try to declare himself a righteous man.
And so let us always try to strive, like the tax collector, to keep our eyes humble,
not thinking that heaven is our debtor, but we are the debtors to heaven.
We owe to almighty God all the good works we do.
And so let us strive to persevere in good works.
This becomes very important in our day and age,
for often we are told, and rightfully so, that when we see someone falling into sin,
that we should try to make an excuse for them.
But again, we must always understand this in light of the doctrine.
For one of the common errors of our modern man,
one of the common errors of our modern society,
is not to judge the very action.
And so we often excuse away sin.
But as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us,
the primary criteria, the most important thing, is the action itself.
Is the action good, in the eyes of God, or is the action bad?
If the action is bad, then it is a sinful action.
And so we must strive, through prayer, to overcome the temptation or the inclination to any sin.
And so, in order to do that, we must take action.
And so, in order to do that, we must take action.
And so, in order to do that, we must take action.
And in order to do this, we must truly be humble.
We must know that we have no strength on our own to avoid the temptations,
to conquer the temptations, and the trials and the tribulations that come to us,
but that our strength is in God.
And so, the tax collector would go away justified,
because he knew that his strength was in God,
and that in his weakness he was unable to do anything pleasing to God.
And so he would come to the temple in order to seek from God
and that in his weakness he was unable to do anything pleasing to God.
grace is necessary for him to perform good actions. And so, let us always strive in this day and age
to remember, as St. Thomas tells us, the most important criteria is not the psychological
excuses or any other excuse that modern society offers for our actions, but first and foremost,
we must judge, is this act good in the eyes of God or bad in the eyes of God? And if it is a good
action, we must pray for God to perform that action in humility. For the Pharisee declares
that he did many good actions, but he clearly did not do them in humility because he thought he was
able to do them under his own strength. The tax collector, on the other hand, knew that his sins
were sinful and that he had no strength to do good, and so he would not even cast a glance
towards heaven, but would keep his eyes down and humbly beg and beseech,
for the grace is necessary to be delivered from his sin. And so, he showed himself to be a truly
active man because he was performing that greatest of all activities, the activity of humility by
which he recognizes the need for God's help to do all things well. And so, let us strive like the
tax collector to do things with true humility, and let us always remember that if we leave the
temple of the Lord just to follow God, we will not be able to do all things well. And so, let us
strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do all things
well. And so, let us strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do all
things well. And so, let us strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do all
things well. And so, let us strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do all
things well. And so, let us strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do
all things well. And so, let us strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do all
things well. And so, let us strive that if we leave the temple of the Lord, we will not be able to do all
and has given us justification, but we must always remember that he has given it to us.
We have not produced it in one iota.
Not a drop of our righteousness is produced by anything that comes from ourselves,
but it is truly and freely a gift of God.
Indeed, our Christian faith itself is a gift of God.
And indeed, St. Pius X would declare that in his catechism when he answered to the question,
why are you a Christian?
The answer is very simple.
I am a Christian by the grace of God.
It is a perfectly gratuitous act on the part of the Savior.
And so let us truly show ourselves grateful by performing those actions which we know to be pleasing to God
simply because they are pleasing to God,
not because of any righteousness on our own parts,
but because we wish to show God the depth of our love for him.
And so we wish to praise.
Let us persevere in a life of good actions.
And let us always remember that our good actions always and everywhere begin in humility.
And so we must begin our day asking the Lord for his graces to do things well.
And at the end of the day, we must be thankful for the times we have responded to the grace of God
and then beg him for the grace to do tomorrow a little better in those things that we failed him today.
And if we do this, then ultimately,
we will see,
we will see,
we will receive the reward for our perseverance in the grace of God.
That is to see him for all eternity by way of the beatific vision in that kingdom of his father,
which we know through faith to be heaven.
And so we must do all things in faith.
And so the tax collector came in good faith in order to receive righteousness.
He left still a humble man,
but he left with the righteousness of God.
And so he would begin,
as it were,
a life by which he would serve the Lord through prayer and through penance,
trying to show himself truly a sorrowful sinner by the actions that he would perform for the love that he had received this day.
And so let us remember that when we receive the grace of God,
we are ultimately receiving the love of God.
And that is why we were created.
And so let us do nothing to block the love of God,
that love which God wishes to place in our souls.
And he wishes.
He wishes to increase by his grace each and every moment of our lives in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
who at each and every instant of her life was completely and totally in the grace of God.
And yet each moment that passed,
she grew more and more in the grace of God.
And so let us strive always to remember that when it comes to the love of God,
the human soul can never be satisfied in one sense.
It always has the capacity to receive more.
And so,
even in heaven,
there is a sort of growth as eternity rolls on.
Indeed,
we must even use language that fails to describe the mystery of eternity.
For strictly speaking,
the term to roll on cannot be applied to eternity.
But our language fails in trying to describe that great mystery of eternity.
But let us always remember that if we attain what we were created to attain,
then we will have the happiness we seek.
And that happiness in some mysterious way will continue to increase and grow for all eternity.
And so we have much to strive for.
And ultimately,
in order to attain it,
we have little to do in this life,
for the Lord has done the bulk of the work for us by his sacrifice.
We have little to add to his suffering.
So let us strive in this time that we have to add what the Lord requires of us to his suffering,
so that we may be found at the end of our lives,
our lives, righteous and just in his sight, and then attain our final reward.
Amen.