There are times when Jesus had a great instinct for simplifying things. In his time, we are told that there were more than 600 laws that devout Jews were supposed to know and follow, dietary rules, rules about behavior, more than half were things that you were simply never to do. Sometimes it seems like Catholics have also been extremely good at lists like this, prayers to say, activities to avoid, attendance requirements. There are almost 3,000 numbered paragraphs in our catechism explaining what we believe and how we should live. So it might seem like it is something of a relief for Jesus to say in today’s gospel that…
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Most of us think we aren’t very good at praying, or at least, that we could do a lot better in both the frequency and the content departments. But no matter how little we know about prayer one thing we do all know, that in this gospel the Pharisee shows us exactly how not to do it. “I thank you, God, that I am not like the rest of humanity.” In a way, it’s an encouragement for the rest of us to get back to prayer, since really, almost anything incoherent we might decide to blurt out has to be better than this. It’s easy to laugh at this caricature…
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You have probably heard the story about the man who decided he wanted a parrot, so he went and found one on the internet, drove off and brought him home. But it turned out to be a horrible parrot, it was dirty, pecked its cage to pieces, destroyed furniture in the apartment, and worst of all, yes, it could talk, but all it said were the most horrible profanities, and when the owner had company over, it was even worse, shrieking the most awful things you’ve ever heard. And one night after an episode like that, the man grabbed the parrot off its perch, opened the freezer, shoved the parrot…