Gospel 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 man 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.
REFLECTION: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”
A roman centurion was trained for battle, to fight and destroy the enemy. He was not known for his religious beliefs, yet here he is coming to Jesus in faith and compassion for his servant. This nameless centurion never knew the ramification of his spoken word, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word…” These are the words spoken in mass for preparation to receive the body and blood of Jesus. It is a prayer to humble ourselves before almighty God so He will heal us through the sacrament of communion.
This centurion’s trust in the spoken word of Jesus was stronger than all of Israel. He believed in Jesus’s authentic authority and the holy healing power of Jesus’s words. Just like the centurion, we are sinners who look to Jesus for healing. But do we have the same faith as the centurion when we pray, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”?
With each communion Jesus says to us, “I will come and cure him.” What a great God we have to lower Himself among us to become one of us, to enter into us under the species of bread and wine, and then to dwell in the humble love of our hearts, curing us. That is the very hour we can claim to be healed.
