NOTES for Лк 18:14
The tax collector and the Pharisee are two sides of a person that coexist peacefully within us. At the same time the Pharisee living in us can be a very worthy person: fasting, prayer, a tithe of everything one has, this is already not so little. Even the Lord says that "this man went down to his house justified rather than the other." That is, the Pharisee received his justification, but not as much as the tax collector. This happened because the Pharisee demanded just treatment for himself, while the tax collector hoped for mercy.
In the end, we too need not justice, whose triumph the Pharisee inside us so often wants; we need the mercy for which the tax collector quietly asks. Because according to justice we deserve very little, if anything at all, while by mercy the Kingdom is promised to us.