The Simplest Prayer

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, October 23rd, 2022:
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Luke
18.9-14

​Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and regarded others with contempt:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘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.’

“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!’

“I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

I remember going to Mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and hearing Cardinal Collins talk about the Jesus Prayer. He said it was the simplest prayer, the only one you really need to pray when you don’t know what else to say. I don’t remember the context or the rest of the homily or why this stuck with me but, all these years later, the singular importance of this prayer stands out in my mind.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

These are the tax collector’s words. 

What I remember is that this simplest prayer is all we need. It’s a prayer for when we don’t know what to say, for when we can’t make it to Confession, a prayer that sums up something fundamental about our relationship with the Father and Son: we cry out for mercy and He hears us and gives it – in His own time, of course.

Simplicity is best, and so is keeping our eyes fixed above rather than on what everybody else is doing. It’s so easy to get caught up in what it looks like to be a good Christian (especially in this age of social media), but God doesn’t care what we look like. I think that we, flawed humans, are the only ones preoccupied with how we appear. God loves our hearts and what we do with them.
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There’s humility in praying the Jesus Prayer because, when we say it, we recognize that we are, first and foremost, sinners. There’s no hiding behind false humility. The prayer isn’t, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me when I sin sometimes.” Though it’s painful, we’re better off bringing our faults to the Son and laying them at the foot of His cross. There is nothing God wants more than for us to let Him love us and bestow His mercy upon us. 

Like the tax collector, let us open our hearts and come to Him humbly with our prayers.



Kim Tan

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