Of the Pharisee and the Publican.
Let us therefore be rich and fear to be poor. Let us seek to fill our hearts with riches from Him who is truly rich. And if perhaps each of you enters into his heart and does not find these riches there, let him knock at the door of the rich one, let him become a pious beggar at the door of that rich man, so that he may be filled with riches by his gift. And truly, my brothers, we ought to confess our poverty and need to the Lord our God. This was confessed by the publican, who did not even dare to lift his eyes to heaven. For he, being a sinner, had no substance with which to lift his eyes. He observed his emptiness but recognized the fullness of the Lord. He knew he had come to the fountain thirsty. He showed his dry throat, piously knocked to be filled: "Lord," he said, beating his breast and lowering his eyes to the ground, "be merciful to me, a sinner." I say that he was already rich in some part, thinking and asking these things. For if he was still entirely poor, from where would he bring forth the gems of this confession? Yet he descended from the temple more abundant and fuller, justified. But the Pharisee went up to pray and asked for nothing. "They went up," it says, "to the temple to pray." This man prays, that one does not pray. But that one, where was he from? There are those who think themselves rich, having nothing. "Lord," he said, "I thank you that I am not like other men, unjust, thieves, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all I possess." He boasted of himself, but this is inflation, not fullness. He thought himself rich, having nothing. The other recognized himself poor, already having something. To say nothing else, he had the piety of confession itself. And both descended. But the publican, it says, was justified more than the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.