Reflection for September 12, Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time: Luke 7:1-10

Gospel: Luke 7:1-10

When Jesus had finished all his words to the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave who was ill and about to die, and he was valuable to him. When he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and save the life of his slave. They approached Jesus and strongly urged him to come, saying, “He deserves to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation and he built the synagogue for us.” And Jesus went with them, but when he was only a short distance from the house, the centurion sent friends to tell him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof.  

Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant 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 at him and, turning, said to the crowd following him, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When the messengers returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

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Reflection:

Are you concerned of the welfare of the less fortunate? 

When the centurion/soldier heard that Jesus was nearby he asked one of his people to ask Jesus to pass by his house so that the Lord can heal his slave.  

The concern of the centurion to his slave was very commendable. I wish that we are all like him: very concerned with the welfare of the less fortunate. But the reality of it all is many of us do not care for the slaves or the less fortunate.  

We just have to look around and we’ll see that poverty is all over the place. What are we doing about this? Are we doing something to help them in whatever way possible? Or we don’t mind them for the reason that they are poor and they can’t pay us back.  

Many are poor nowadays because many of us are indifferent to their plight. And many of these indifferent people are politicians who shamelessly steal money from the coffers of the government  which is supposed to be given to the poor. Let us become modern day centurions by being helpful to the slaves of our times none other than the poor people of our society.  

Jesus will surely be happy if we would help them and the Lord will surely give us back a hundred times the help that we would give the.  – Marino J. Dasmarinas