The tax collector, standing off at a distance, beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ How do we pray and what should be the content of our prayer? This is the question, I believe, which Jesus attempts to answer in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector about which we hear in the Gospel Reading. The two individuals could not have been further apart from each other. Although the two individuals would ordinarily avoid keeping the company of each other at all costs, they found themselves brought together by the need to say a prayer. And as fate would have it, they ended up remaining in each other’s vicinity as they said their prayers. It was a development that perhaps played a role in the content of the prayers that the two men said. The Pharisee offered a prayer of thanksgiving in recognition of the many ‘good things’ that God had afforded him. He even went as far as acknowledging the presence of the tax collector in his prayers as he thanked the Lord for sparing him the lot of the tax collector. Hearing his name mentioned in not so a flattering manner, what the tax collector ended up doing was to bow his head in humility, beat his breast in acknowledgment of his unworthiness, and implored the Lord’s mercy. At the end of their prayers, Jesus tells us, it was the tax collector who, because of his recognition of both his sinfulness and need for God’s mercy, went home justified. In other words, it is the one who recognized his need for God’s mercy that did pray. Does that mean prayer should only be about recognizing one’s sinfulness? Shouldn’t prayer also be about recognizing in gratitude God’s blessings?   
Prayer is all about speaking with, and listening to God. Prayer is the only means of effectively living out our relationship with God. It is the only way men and women can remain in relationship with God for which they were created. Jesus definitely understood this for he made prayer part of his ministry. He always recognized through prayer the central role his relationship with God played in his ministry (cf. Mk 6:41; Mk 7:34; John 11:40-44). From Jesus, we learn that prayer should inform every single aspect of our lives. We should pray during good times (thanksgiving) and bad times (supplication). Nonetheless, whether a thanksgiving or a supplication, prayer should always help us remain focused on our relationship with God even as it serves to enhance it. 
What kind of a relationship do we have with God? Or rather, what kind of a relationship SHOULD we have with God? God is our creator, provider and sustainer. God is he without whom we cannot be. And even though we are mere creatures, God invites us into an intimate relationship with him to the extent of letting us call him Abba, Father (cf. Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). It is a relationship that exalts us for thus close to God, we are made into little ‘gods’ (cf. Psalm 82:6; John 10:34). It is something that should humble us and fill us with gratitude. And it is this that should form the basis of our prayer.  
Inasmuch as our prayer should be a thanksgiving, it should not be turned into an occasion for showing off or debasing others as the Pharisee did. This is probably the reason why, according to Jesus, he (the Pharisee) did not return home justified. The Pharisee had forgotten that prayer should be an occasion for humbling ourselves before God, that even as we enumerate our blessings, the focus should always be on God’s generosity, not on our worthiness (with the implication that those who have not been blessed as us are less worthy). In contrast to the Pharisee, the tax collector recognized his unworthiness to even stand before God in prayer. In his prayer of supplication, he asked God in his mercy not to let his sins place him outside a relationship with God.