6 March 2027 · Latin Rite
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“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” Luke 18:13
The first reading opens with a beautiful song of repentance: “Come, let us return to the LORD; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us… After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up.” The Fathers of the Church heard in these words a hidden promise of the Resurrection on the third day. But God's reply is sobering: “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?… Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.” The people's repentance is sincere for an hour and then evaporates in the sun. God wants something deeper and more lasting: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” The Hebrew word for steadfast love, hesed, means faithful, covenant love, the kind that does not dry up by noon. Jesus himself quoted this verse twice when he was criticized for eating with sinners: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” The Psalm, David's great prayer of repentance, gives us the words: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
In the Gospel two men go up to the Temple to pray. The Pharisee stands by himself and gives thanks, but only for himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” Everything he says is true. He really fasts and really gives. But he has come to God to be admired, and he looks down on his neighbour. The tax collector, a man despised as a collaborator with Rome, stands far off, will not lift his eyes, beats his breast, and says only: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Jesus says this man “went down to his home justified rather than the other.” The parable is told, Luke says, “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” It is a warning to every devout person, especially in Lent, when our fasting and almsgiving can quietly become a mirror. The tax collector's prayer has become one of the treasures of the Church: the Jesus Prayer of the East, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” grew from it, and at every Mass we strike our breast with him at the Confiteor. On this Saturday before Laetare Sunday, it is a good day to go to confession and to pray his prayer.
Theme: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Love like the morning dew, the steadfast love God desires, and the prayer that justifies.
“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.” Hosea 6:4
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Luke 15:7
Apply: Choose one Lenten resolution that has faded since Ash Wednesday and begin it again today.
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6
“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Matthew 9:13
Apply: Do one act of mercy this weekend for someone others look down on.
“For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit,” Isaiah 57:15
“I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:14
Apply: Go to confession this weekend, and begin with the tax collector's words.
God desires faithful love, not display.
The humble prayer of a sinner is heard, and he goes home justified.
Take-home resolution: Pray the Jesus Prayer several times each day until Easter.
Dear friends, the people in Hosea sing: come, let us return to the LORD; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us (Hosea 6:1). It sounds like a perfect repentance. But God answers: your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early (Hosea 6:4). Their conversion lasted an hour.
God wants more: for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6). Faithful love, not religious display. Jesus repeated these words when people complained that he ate with sinners.
In the Gospel two men pray in the Temple. The Pharisee says: God, I thank you that I am not like other people… I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income (Luke 18:11–12). What he says is true, but he prays to a mirror. The tax collector stands far off, beats his breast, and says: God, be merciful to me, a sinner! (Luke 18:13).
Jesus says the tax collector went down to his home justified, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted (Luke 18:14). This weekend, let us bring that prayer to the confessional. God does not despise a broken and contrite heart. Amen.
Children, two men prayed in church. One said: God, I am better than everybody! The other said: God, I am sorry, please be kind to me. God loved the humble prayer. Let us say tonight: Jesus, I am sorry, please be kind to me.
Merciful God, you desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, and you do not despise a broken and contrite heart. Free us from pride and from contempt for others; make our love faithful and not like the morning dew; and let us go down to our homes justified, praying with the tax collector: God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today’s readings ask what kind of religion God wants. Hosea hears a beautiful song of repentance and answers that their love vanishes like the morning dew. In Jesus’ parable, two men go up to pray, and the one with nothing to show goes home justified. Psalm 51 is the prayer of the second man. God is not against sacrifice or fasting. What he wants is the heart behind them. The key words are steadfast love, know and justified.
Setting.
Hosea preached in the northern kingdom in the eighth century BC. Many scholars connect this passage with the war of about 733 BC, when Israel and Judah fought one another and Assyria stepped in, which would explain why both Ephraim and Judah are named here. Just before the reading, God compares himself to a lion that tears its prey (5:14), and that is why the people speak of being “torn”.
The reading is a dialogue. The people sing a hymn of return (6:1–3), and God answers it (6:4–6). Many commentators think the song is too easy: it speaks of God’s return as sure as the dawn, but it does not name any sin. God’s answer suggests that he has heard such songs before.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;” (6:1)
True words. The danger is that repentance can become a mood or a phrase that costs nothing.
“After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up,” (6:2)
In its setting, this hopes for a nation’s quick recovery. Many of the Fathers read in it a foreshadowing of Christ’s resurrection, and many scholars think it may lie behind St Paul’s “on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4).
“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud,” (6:4)
We hear the grief of a parent here, more than the anger of a judge. The word for love in this verse is the same ḥesed as in v. 6.
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (6:6)
The second half of the verse explains the first: “rather than”. In Hebrew idiom, “this and not that” can mean “this more than that”. God gave Israel the sacrifices; he does not condemn them here. He refuses them when they are empty. Jesus quotes this verse twice, as “mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that outward sacrifice must express the spiritual sacrifice of the heart, that the prophets denounced offerings that did not come from the heart or were not joined to love of neighbor, and that Jesus recalls these words of Hosea (CCC 2100). The Mass is no empty ritual of the kind Hosea feared: there Christ’s own self-offering, the perfect love of the Son for the Father, is made present, and we are drawn into it. What remains for us is to come with our hearts, and to carry that love out through the church door.
Setting.
This parable is found only in Luke, and it comes just after the parable of the widow and the judge (18:1–8), also on prayer. Luke tells us who it is for: “some who trusted in themselves”. He does not say that they were Pharisees. A Pharisee is simply one of the characters.
To hear it as the first listeners did, we must remember how each man was regarded. Pharisees were a respected lay movement devoted to holiness in everyday life. Tax collectors gathered tolls for the ruling powers, often made a profit from it, and were widely despised. No one listening would have expected this ending. The parable is no portrait of Pharisees in general, or of Judaism, and Jesus shared much with them (CCC 575). It is aimed at something that can grow in any believer.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“God, I thank you that I am not like other people:” (18:11)
It begins well, with thanks. But the rest is about himself, and he never asks God for anything. The Greek may also be read as “he prayed these things to himself”, or as the NRSV’s “standing by himself”. Either reading makes its point.
“I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” (18:12)
This is more than the Law asks. The Law commanded one fast, on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29), and later Jewish sources mention Mondays and Thursdays for such voluntary fasts. His practice is real and good, and he is not called a liar.
“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (18:13)
Everything in his body says what his lips say. In Greek he says “the sinner”, as if there were no other in the world. He does not compare himself with anyone.
“I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other;” (18:14)
Luke does not say that he left his trade or made amends; that is told of another tax collector, in the next chapter (19:8). Here the point is who was received by God, and how. Jesus has said the closing line before, at a dinner table (14:11).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls humility the foundation of prayer and quotes St Augustine, “Man is a beggar before God” (CCC 2559). It names this parable among the three great parables of prayer in Luke, the one about the humility of the heart that prays (CCC 2613), and it says that asking forgiveness is the first movement of petition, as in the tax collector’s words (CCC 2631). The Eastern Churches’ Jesus Prayer grows from this verse. In the Latin Mass, we make the same gesture at the Confiteor, striking the breast at the words “through my fault”.
Does this parable mean that fasting and tithing do not matter? Is it wrong to thank God for what I am doing well?
No. Jesus does not criticize the Pharisee’s fast or his gift, and the Church calls us to fasting and almsgiving in this very season. It is right to thank God for any good in our lives, since it comes from his grace. What goes wrong here is the comparison. Good works done by God’s grace are precious to him. When they are turned into a stick to beat our neighbor with, the heart has gone astray. One test: does my Lent make me gentler with others?