RBWords

[Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19 and Matthew 8:5-17]

     "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed." [Matthew]

     These words should be familiar to us.  We say them just before we move out of the pews and into the aisles (observing, of course, "social distancing!") to go and receive communion. In place of "servant," we say "soul." Like so many Catholic devotional words, the sheer familiarity and ritual use of the words has robbed them of much of their original power as an act of faith!  The story in today's gospel scripture of the centurion is also familiar to us, and its familiarity can cause us to let it go by without a lot of thought.  A closer look might help us pay more attention.

     A centurion would have been a combination of lieutenant and sergeant in charge of a group of one hundred foot soldiers.  He would have complete power of command over that group.  His command would be law!  It was said that the Roman army depended on the quality of its centurions.  The centurion in the gospel story would not have been Jewish or Christian.  If anything, he would have followed the customary polytheistic Roman religious system except that he would have been required to pay homage to Caesar, who was considered a divinity.  His acknowledgment of Jesus' power to heal would have been quite surprising, and Jesus admits to his own astonishment: "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith."  

     The centurion did not need Jesus to come to his house to perform a public miracle.  His faith and experience told him that Jesus' command would be enough.  When we make his words of faith our own at Mass, do they express a similar faith?  AMEN