March Message of the Rector Major

THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

Fr. Fabio Attard, SDB

Educating to Mercy

The Pharisee & the Publican
(James Tissot)

For us as educators and evangelizers, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) isn’t simply a moral tale about pride and humility, but a profound revelation about how God encounters us and how we’re called to pass on this transformative experience.

Faith as a call to a relationship of mercy.

When the Pharisee goes up to the temple, he brings with him an image of God constructed to his own measure: a God who records merits and demerits, who rewards the righteous and condemns sinners. His prayer is a comparison with others: “I thank you that I am not like other people.” An authentic relationship is missing. There’s only smugness, self-complacency.

The tax collector, on the contrary, enters the temple aware of his own unworthiness. His “O God, have mercy on me, a sinner” isn’t despair, but the courageous opening to a possible relationship precisely because it’s founded on mercy. He senses what the Pharisee missed: God isn’t a judge but a Father who awaits the return of his prodigal children. For us educators, this distinction is foundational. How many times, unconsciously, do we transmit an image of God closer to that of the Pharisee – a God who inspects, sits in judgment, and rewards or punishes based on our spiritual “performance”?

Education to the Faith fosters an encounter with Mercy, an experience where we discover that we’re loved; indeed, we’re beloved children even in our fragility. To evangelize means to introduce people into this merciful relationship. God doesn’t wait for us to be perfect in order to love us; rather, the richness of his love is made manifest precisely through our poverty. This is the good news that we must announce: a relationship that transforms from within.

A relationship that begins with humility of heart.

The tax collector’s humility is the condition that makes an encounter with God possible. Standing “at a distance” and “not even daring to lift his eyes to Heaven” shows that he recognizes the infinite disproportion between God’s holiness and his own wretchedness, and also trusts that this Holy God bends down toward those who recognize their neediness. In contrast, the Pharisee’s prayer is full of “I”: “I fast,” “I tithe.” He has built his religious identity on self-affirmation, on comparison with others, on demonstrating his own works. He feels he’s already full, has already “made it,” and is already righteous.

In the field of education and evangelization, humility of heart is the ability to recognize that one is constantly in need of salvation, never taking one’s relationship with God for granted, and remaining open to the gift of his grace. It’s the attitude of those who know that the Christian life isn’t a possession acquired once and for all but a daily journey in which we allow ourselves to be molded by Divine Mercy. As educators, we’re called to be the first to bear witness to this humility, recognizing our limitations, our weaknesses, and our continuous need for conversion. Only in this way do we become credible and create spaces in which others can also take off their own masks and present themselves to God as they are.

To be sinners, loved and forgiven.

The conclusion of the parable is perturbing: “This man, unlike the other, went home justified.” The tax collector, who had nothing to offer but his own misery, receives everything. The Pharisee, who had so much to show off, remains in his sterile illusion. God doesn’t justify those who consider themselves righteous, but those who acknowledge themselves to be sinners. He doesn’t fill those who are full, but those who are empty. He doesn’t have an encounter with those who don’t feel they need it, but with those who implore healing. This is the paradox of the Gospel: even though we’re sinners, we’re saved because God’s Mercy is greater.

In religious education today, this parable shows us that when we acknowledge sin, we open ourselves to his transforming grace. Sin doesn’t crush us.

Being sinners who are loved and forgiven doesn’t equate to a status of inferiority, but to the proper condition of the Christian. It’s this identity which allows us to live in freedom, without pretending to be perfect, without hiding our failures, without building façades of respectability. It’s the awareness that the foundation of our life lies not in what we’ve done, but in what God has done and continues to do for us.

Witnesses to God’s Mercy, experienced personally.

The tax collector who returns home justified inevitably becomes a witness. He can’t remain silent about the experience of having been welcomed, forgiven, and uplifted. His life will speak of the Mercy that transformed him. This is where true evangelization takes place. We don’t pronounce abstract theories about God’s mercy, but we bear witness to a personal experience. We speak of a forgiveness we’ve received, of a Love that sought for and found us, of a relationship that gave meaning to our existence.

For those who work in the field of education and evangelization, this means, first and foremost, the need to cultivate one’s spiritual life as a living experience of this Mercy. Before being “masters” – teachers – we must be disciples; before teaching, we must learn; before giving, we must receive. The credibility of our message is measured by the truth of our experience. Furthermore, it means creating educational contexts in which people can have this same experience – not environments of judgment, but of welcome; not places where one must demonstrate merit, but spaces where one can acknowledge one’s fragility; not structures where religious skills are acquired, but communities where one experiences the tenderness of God.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector reminds us that education to the Faith is essentially an introduction to a relationship: with a God who loves us with merciful love, who always awaits us, who always forgives us, who makes our poverty the place of his encounter with us.