THE WORD
Lm 2,2.10-14.18-19 / Mt 8,5-17
When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen,
I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” And
Jesus said to the centurion, “You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.” And at that very hour (his) servant was healed.
Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him. When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick, to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet: “He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
IN OTHER WORDS
A story is told about a newly-opened nightclub in a small town. The only church in that town gathered together its members for an all-night prayer meeting to ask God to burn down the club.
Within a few minutes, lightning struck the club and burnt it down. The owner brought to court the church whose members denied responsibility. The judge’s verdict: “It appears that the nightclub owner believes in prayer, while the church doesn’t.”
Only twice in the Gospels is Jesus shown to have been amazed: at the centurion’s faith, and at the lack of faith among his own people in Nazareth (Mk. 6:6).
The centurion’s faith that amazed Jesus was how he expressed his belief in Jesus’ power to heal his servant. As a centurion, he knew his power to make things happen at his orders but believed that Jesus too had the power in His word to order his servant to be healed. This experience cautions Christians against taking faith for granted, or simply just being complacent about it.
Faith is not just a set of truths we need to learn and accept. It is about personally accepting God as the ultimate power and source of all that is good for each of us. May the story of the centurion’s faith increase our faith with the same intensity that made him trust the Lord, even when he did not yet personally see what the Lord had promised him. For as it is written, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of the things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
We owe this centurion’s faith statement our response before receiving Communion: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
Faith is an amazing power. Once Jesus said, “If you have faith the size of the mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you” (Lk. 17:6).
- Fr. Jun de Ocampo, SVD | Berlin, Germany
The Word in other words 2016
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
