Reflection for November 29, Monday of the First Week of Advent: Matthew 8:5-11

Gospel: Matthew 8:5-11

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."

+ + + + +  + +

Reflection:

Do you have deep faith in the Lord?  

Jesus wanted to go to the house of the centurion to personally cure the centurion’s ailing servant. But the centurion said to Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” What a display of deep faith! It was already enough for the roman centurion that he talked to Jesus about his wish for his servant.  

We can’t help but compare the faith of the centurion with our personal faith in Jesus. We can’t help also but compare our concern for the poor with the centurion’s concern for his servant. In both instances many of us pale in comparison for our faith in Jesus is not as strong as the centurion. And our concern for the poor is not as much as his concern for his servant.  

Jesus would certainly want us to have more faith in Him and have more concern for the poor. But how can we increase of faith in Jesus? We must pray often and in our prayers we must include our desire to have an increase of faith.  

Of course our desire for increase of faith must not end with our vocal prayers. We must concretely show it also through our actions of faith. For example if we desire to have something from Jesus we should show Jesus that we want it by doing something to have it. We must not lie idly and just pray, we must act, exert our best effort and let Jesus do the rest.  

This is what the centurion did, he went to Jesus, he saw Jesus, he talked to Jesus and he told Jesus that he wants his ailing servant healed by Him. – Marino J. Dasmarinas