(Given at the 5:30 pm Sunday youth Mass at OLP)
We need to stop comparing ourselves to others. According to Father Samuel Keyes, this is what Jesus is saying in our gospel passage this evening. The Pharisee prays this way explicitly, but maybe when we heard the passage, we thought, hey at least I’m not like that Pharisee. Ehh! Wrong. Even if we are doing better than the Pharisee, even if we are the best Catholics in the world and have the greatest of virtues, if we still have this pride of comparison, we are nothing. This thinking, of course, can be difficult to let go of. How many times have we made this comparison with people of the other political party, with people raising their kids differently than we would, with kids in school who just don’t seem to fit in with us? At least I’m not as bad as Trump! At least I’m not as bad as Biden! At least, I know how to raise my kids! I know I’ve made comparisons like these before. Jesus wants us to let go of comparison and focus on ourselves: Ourselves not in a selfish way, but through self-care, humility, and the other virtues. The publican from our gospel prays: God be merciful to me a sinner. Such beautiful words. Maybe, I have a long way to go in improving myself. Okay, I acknowledge that. I bring that to the Lord. But I also need to remember that God is good and that I’m his child. His grace will and does help me. It doesn’t do me any good whether I am thinking I’m superior to others or even inferior to others in a disordered way, like woe is me, everyone is better than me. We can’t stay in either place. On the other hand, maybe, I’m doing well, and praise God for that, let me do even better. Let me keep doing good. Fr. Samuel Keyes also says that when we focus on doing good and improving ourselves in this way, we don’t have time to look at whether others are better or worse than us. As the saying goes, I need to focus on my side of the street. Now, of course, I’m not talking about when we are in a position of authority and need to evaluate others or the times when we need to speak out against error and sinful behavior or the times when we need to evaluate the friends we hang around with. There will be times when this is necessary. By God’s grace we can and should do so without putting the focus on ourselves in comparison. This week, what’s one virtue that we can focus on for ourselves? Or maybe we can mimic the publican from the gospel and repeat his prayer throughout the week, God be merciful to me, a sinner.