In today’s Gospel, Jesus presents a parable about righteousness, about humility, and a question about both. And He presents two people, a Pharisee and a tax collector, one who enjoys his prayer so much that he wants to share it with everyone, even going so far as reminding God at how great a pray-er he is, and the other, in the back of the temple, eyes cast down, unable to even look up, beating his breast, pleading mercy for his sins.

Two people at prayer but only one person praying.

And that is why, throughout our readings, especially in our Gospel, a common thread exists, a thread that is not only important but also incredibly necessary when praying and that is, quite simply, humility, for without it prayer then becomes nothing more than talking to God about ourselves with no desire for God to talk to us about Him.

For, all prayer, whether we recognize it or not, has instilled within it a desire for God to form us, a desire to have such an intimate relationship with Him that our conversation is not mere everyday conversation but truly love speaking to love. And, in order for that to happen, we need to fully abandon ourselves before our Almighty Father, hiding nothing and holding nothing back, not trying to fill the time with trivial and everyday conversation, but approaching Him in humility, in trust, in truth and in faith. Falling to our knees, knowing who we are and how we stand before God and being completely, brutally and thoroughly honest with Him. For, it is He who knows us better than we know ourselves.

Blessed Mother Teresa, in fact, gives a great reminder, she says: “Humility comes when I stand as tall as I can, and look at all of my strengths, and the reality about me, but put myself alongside Jesus Christ. And it's there, when I humble myself before Him, and realize the truth of who He is, when I accept God's estimate of myself, stop being fooled about myself and impressed with myself, that I begin to learn humility. The higher I am in grace, she says, the lower I should be in my own estimation because I am comparing myself with the Lord God.”

This is why when we approach God, as St. Paul reminds in our second reading, we are to pour ourselves out like a libation, that is, empty ourselves of ourselves before Him, because then He not only works through us but fills us with His grace.

Perhaps the best example of this was a priest I met a few summers ago at a program for priestly formation. He had a couple of jobs, but the one in particular that stood out to me was as the exorcist of a major metropolitan city.

I remember we had a great conversation about exorcisms, how it happens, how they know if a person is possessed etc. However, when I asked him how he prepares for an exorcism he said “I fast, I pray, and have others pray for me, and most importantly during the actual exorcism, I get out of the way.”

It was probably the most profoundly simple pieces of advice I had ever heard, but one of the greatest examples of how we are to live as Christians and how we are to approach God in prayer. That in order to do such a great thing, he had to let himself be the lowest thing, the mere conduit through which God works, the mere vessel of His grace.

This is why humility is so necessary, because pride, as the Pharisee demonstrates, prevents us from seeing beyond ourselves, from truly approaching God, so that it becomes we, ourselves, who create the obstacle to Him. Yet, when recognize that, in the words of St. Josemaria Escriva: “Humility is born of knowing God and knowing oneself,” we will see that we can never know ourselves unless we know God, and we can never know Him unless we approach Him as we are, in openness, in truth and always aware of how vulnerable we truly are.

For, by doing so, we will always be able to live in true humility and know well the reality of what Christ says: “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”