Twenty Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Lk 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.
THE WORD OF GOD HEALS: A centurion (gentile) came to Jesus, to request Him to heal his slave. He had courage to reach to Jesus on behalf of his slave. He realized that he was not worthy to receive Jesus under his roof, and so requested Jesus to say the Word so that his slave would be healed. What great faith that the centurion had! The Word of God is full of power. How do we receive it? Do we trust that it will give us life? Sometimes we read the Word of God but fail to allow it to influence our life. In this way ee take it for granted. Following the example of St. John Chrysostom who had great knowledge of the Scriptures, let us have faith in the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.
PRAYER: Lord, increase our faith.
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NATURE OF WORTHINESS: The Roman Centurion of the gospel today had a good report, because he had an unusual attitude to his servant. He took care of his servant and when his servant was sick, he sent elders of the Jews to Jesus for the healing of his servant. He was a religious man for he built synagogue for them. He had an extremely unusual attitude to the Jews who would normally despise the foreigners. We also find that he was a humble man, because a Jew was forbidden to enter into a house of gentile. Therefore, he would persuade his Jewish friends to approach Jesus. Finally, he was a man of faith in Jesus. For he had confessed that he had authority over the soldiers and the servants and believed that Jesus had greater authority over everything. He believed that Jesus could do miracles. What about our faith in Christ our Lord?
DAILY GOSPEL 