"Everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled and everyone that humbles himself shall be exalted"
Tragically there are many who imagine that these pangs of conscience come from themselves. They do not acknowledge that this is a gift from God but imagine that this is a goodness that they still possess deep within their own souls. Even though they may realize that they are in mortal sin and that there is no longer any goodness in them because their souls are dead, they still imagine that the pangs of conscience come from themselves and not God. This pride becomes an obstacle to justification. This pride may lead them to penance but it is not the completely humble penance that it should be.
In our confessions we should strive for perfect contrition. Perfect contrition is when our sorrow is motivated by our love for God. Perfect contrition is not nearly as common as it should be, and many through pride imagine that they have this when they do not. They resemble the Pharisee in today's Gospel. While they despise their fellow men or think themselves better than someone else they imagine that they have true love for God. And when they do acknowledge some of their sins they think that the pain they feel from their conscience arises from their tremendous love for God, rather than a special unmerited grace that God has given them.
Imperfect contrition on the other hand is the minimum necessary for the sacrament of Confession. Imperfect contrition is when we are sorry because we fear the punishment that our sins have brought upon us. And this too is an unmerited grace from God.
While we should strive for perfect contrition we must likewise be cautious to guard against pride and vanity. We must watch out for presumption lest we imagine that our contrition is motivated by a great love for God and begin to think ourselves something whereas we are truly nothing.
The graces of God come to us unmerited. We receive the grace of faith, we believe what God has revealed because He has revealed it. We cannot find this grace or earn it or have it forced upon us. It comes to us as a free gift that we either accept and cooperate with or reject. God has given first to us and all that we can do is reciprocate through cooperation with His grace.
The grace of hope fills us with desire that God will continue to be gracious towards us and will forgive us and give us all that we need not only to receive and cooperate with His graces but to also one day obtain the reward of this cooperation with His graces in the eternal happiness of heaven.
The grace of love is the highest of the virtues for it will continue into eternity. This too is unmerited and is first given to us and only through our cooperation with this grace does it increase and multiply in our souls. God gives the first grace and if we cooperate with it, He will send us the second, and if we continue to cooperate He will send us another and another until we arrive at such love that we are eternally united with Him in heaven.
This process has often been compared to the forging of a chain. God gives the first link of the chain. If we cooperate with this grace we in turn forge the second link in the chain to which God attaches the next grace or link in the chain, etc. And it is in this manner link by link that we forge the chain by which we are pulled into heaven.
This process is too often frustrated by our pride and vanity. Once we forget that these graces are from God and begin to think that they are from ourselves we interrupt this chain of graces. The Pharisee in today's gospel imagined that his good works came from himself and were not inspired and brought about by God's graces, and in this he becomes both a thief and a liar. He has attempted to steal the credit and honor from God and he lies when he says that the graces he received from God are his own works.
The publican, who only acknowledged sin as belonging to himself, implied that any good that was in him was not his own but was the work of God. This humility (honesty or truth) is what merited for him the mercy and justification from God.
Let us learn from this parable to see that any good that is within us is a gift from God and any evil that is within us is truly our own. And in this humble position let us strike our breasts as the publican and beg the mercy of God, so that we will be found worthy to receive the next link in our chain of graces.