First Monday of Advent Dec. 4th

Monday of the First Week of Advent

December 4, 2006

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.” Matthew 8:7

I was teaching a Confirmation class and a kid kept asking me, “What is the word?”He was referring to the above scripture, which is what Catholics pray in the mass right before receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (see John 6).The context is that Jesus had told the centurion that he would come to heal his servant and the faith-filled centurion replied by asking Jesus to just say the word right there without coming to the house and his servant would be healed. So, how would you answer the kid’s question, “What is the word?”Would it be something like “Be healed”, “Suffering cease”? We do not know exactly what “the word” was and that is not the point.The point is throwing ourselves into Jesus and acting like he has the power that he says he has. The centurion inspires us to believe that Jesus has the power to do anything.

We do know that Jesus wants to heal our hearts. Do you believe in the power of his word working healing in you? He may not ever heal us physically but he is going to give us the healing that will last forever if only we would believe.Can our prayer become more like, “Only say the word, Jesus, and I, your servant, will be healed?”

The centurion brings up a point about not being worthy to have Jesus under his roof. Maybe we feel that we would never be worthy to receive Jesus into our home, our heart, our life. It is true. On our own merits, we will never be worthy of Jesus. But the reality is that Jesus has made us worthy. He has come to teach, heal, befriend, love, suffer, die and rise for us and in this he makes us worthy! We just say yes to Jesus and jump into him to be healed in the power of his word.

Jesus, only say the word and I, your servant, shall be healed.

Love is spelled T-I-M-E,

Fr. John