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 is answering in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector about which we hear in the Gospel Reading. The Pharisee and the tax collector could not have been more different or further apart from each other. Although the two individuals would ordinarily avoid, at all costs, keeping each other’s company, 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 ended up saying. 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, the only thing the tax collector ended up doing was to bow his head in humility, beat his breast in acknowledgment of his unworthiness even as he implored the Lord to be merciful to him. At the end of their prayers, Jesus tells us, it was the tax collector who, because of the recognition of both his sinfulness and need for God’s mercy, went home justified. In other words, it is the tax collector who 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 to an individual?   
Prayer is all about speaking with, and listening to God (being in communion with 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 a relationship with God since it is for this that they were created. Jesus definitely understood this fact because he made prayer part of his ministry. He always recognized through prayer the central role his relationship with the Father 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, not only as a people of faith but also as beings who owe their existence to another being. We should pray during good times (thanksgiving) and bad times (supplication). Nonetheless, whether it be 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, our provider, and our sustainer. God is that being without whom we cannot be or remain in being. 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 because 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, 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 the blessings which God has bestowed upon us, 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. It was a prayer which, in the eyes of Jesus, endeared him to the Lord. This is the reason why he went home justified.