Where would we be without God’s mercy? No one is without sin, and anyone who claims to be without sin deceives himself, and “the truth” is not in him (1 John 1:8). God loves everyone and wants to draw everyone to Himself. His Mercy shows the depth of His love, compassionate and boundless.

There is a story about Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who visited a prison and talked with each of the inmates. He heard endless tales of innocence, of misunderstood motives, and of exploitation.

Finally, the king stopped at the cell of one inmate who said nothing.

“Well,” remarked Frederick, “I suppose you are an innocent victim too?”

“No, sir, I’m not,” replied the man. “I’m guilty and await my punishment.”

Turning to the warden, the king said, “Here, release this man before he corrupts all these fine, innocent people in here!” Thus, this man became the recipient of the King’s mercy, not because he was innocent, but because he was humble and honest.

Humility and honesty are the keys to calling down God’s Mercy.

There’s a beautiful story in Luke’s’ gospel (Luke 18:9–14) about two people, a Pharisee and a tax collector, who approached the temple to pray with very different attitudes.

A tax collector, in Jesus’ day, was generally regarded as a person of low moral standards. He worked for the pagan Romans, fraternized with them, and constantly handled their “unclean” money. As a result, he was believed to be in a state of ritual uncleanliness. As far as the religion of the day was concerned, tax collectors were public sinners on the highway to hell. But the tax collector in this story put his trust, humbly and honestly, in the gracious mercy of God.

The Pharisee, on the other hand, believed in a discriminating God who only loves good people and hates bad people. People tend to behave like the God they believe in. So, the Pharisee only loved people like himself and looked down on a public sinner like the tax collector.

The humble tax collector, however, trusted, not in himself or in anything he had done, but only in God’s mercy.

Thus he prayed: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Humble and honest and to the point!

It was this humble and honest tax collector who left the temple justified rather than the self-righteous Pharisee.

We should learn from the story of the tax collector about the richness of God’s Mercy.

Firstly, we should acknowledge our sins, humbly and honestly, to receive the generous mercy of God which is greater than any sins we might have committed. Don’t listen to others who tell you God is so angry with you that He cannot be merciful and forgiving.

Secondly, we should never look down on anyone if we wish to receive God’s Mercy ourselves. Everybody is created in God’s image. He commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us ( Luke 6 : 27 – 28 ). By doing this we show we are children of our Heavenly Father.

Let this prayer of the humble and honest tax collector be our heart-felt prayer today :

“God, have mercy on me, a sinner,”

—Fr. Hugh Duffy