The Power of Faith

“Only say the word and my servant shall be healed,” the centurion says to Jesus in today’s Gospel, t. 8: 5-11.  Jesus is amazed at this man’s faith, a faith He has not found in his fellow Jews. The centurion is a Roman soldier, one who enforces Roman law and probably has killed Jews who have transgressed Roman demands.  To hear Jesus praise this man must have been difficult for the Jews. “What is Jesus doing,” they must have wondered. Does He not know who this man is?  God has no favorites, we are told by Paul in Romans 2:11. He saved anyone who believes that He is Son of  God, the Messiah, the One sent by the Father to reconcile the world to the Father.

Do I believe, as did this centurion? Do I realize who comes down upon our altars at every Catholic Liturgy, that is, at every Catholic Mass? Do I realize that at every Mass Jesus is reconciling humankind with God in the breaking of the bread, the Body of the Lord,  and the outpouring of the wine, the Blood of Christ? At the time of Holy Communion when we pray  “Say only the word and my soul shall be healed” that my soul is actually being healed? That too happens when I intercede for the world, for loved ones, for all involved in crime of any kind. Like the centurion, I am saying:  “Say but the word and those I am praying for will be made whole.” Yes, in every liturgy, we ask the Lord to say only the word and our world will be healed of its divisions and participate in the reconciling action Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. Do I really believe that?