12 September 2022
Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s Gospel we hear the origin of those words that we say every day at Mass just before we receive communion: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof…but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” These words, spoken by a non-Christian Roman centurion, have become immortalized into the Mass and into our hearts. Why?
These words reveal a heart who understands two things: that he is unworthy of Christ’s coming close to him and that he can still entrust himself to the one whom he feels unworthy of drawing close to. Humility and trust are at the core of the centurion’s words.
Before the Eucharist, the Church invites us to make the centurion’s words our own with the hopes that the humility and trust of his words are found in our hearts as well. Christ will come under our roof through this sacrament. Christ will visit us unlike in today’s reading with the centurion. To prepare for his coming, we seek to emulate the humility and trust of the centurion: knowing that we are unworthy of Christ’s visit, yet we entrust ourselves to Him, knowing that he doesn’t come because we are worthy, but because he is worthy.
The next time we go to Mass, let us pray for the grace to have faith – to have trust – in Christ like the centurion from today’s reading, knowing that our God is coming under our roof through the Sacrament of the Eucharist.