October 26, 2025 Luke 18: 9-14 In his Gospel St Luke has many stories that relate to prayer and in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican there is a lot to absorb. Jesus seems to address those who pride themselves on being virtuous and despise others. The Tax Collector on the other hand is quite different. He comes to prayer aware of his need with few words quite still in God’s presence with body language that speaks of self-knowledge aware of God’s graciousness This “just being there” before God reminds me of one of Thomas Merton’s stories about prayer. He said, “How does an apple ripen? It just sits in the sun and it cannot ripen in one night by tightening all its muscles, squinting its eyes and tightening its jaws in order to find itself quite miraculously large. It takes time. We too must wait for God, we must be awake; we must trust God’s hidden action within us.” There is another lesson from this tax collector. He went up to the Temple. We too must go to prayer. Until we go there is no prayer. And when we go we confront our poverty and our helplessness. […]