Today’s Gospel gives us the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector: ‘He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others: ^“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”’ (Luke 18:9-14)

Here we find one of the sources for the ‘Jesus Prayer’: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, be merciful to me, a sinner’.  All of us can make the prayer of the tax collector our own, for we have all sinned. May you know the mercy of God in your own life today, and may He bless you.