A Penitent Blogger
An outsider teaches
Our Lord’s encounter with the Centurion, told in today’s Gospel (Matthew 8), is a very familiar one, especially for Catholics. The Centurion’s response to our Lord in the Latin Vulgate translation...
Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur puer meus.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant (boy) shall be healed.
...is found almost intact in the words by which the congregation prepares to receive our Lord in Holy Communion:
Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.
(Trying to be more meaningful than rigidly literal, the current official English version of the Mass translates ut intres sub tectum meum as “to receive you” – utilizing the English word’s multiple senses: namely, to receive something or to receive someone as a guest.)
In this Year of the Eucharist, it is especially good to consider the Eucharistic aspects of such Scripture passages, as have so many Fathers and other saints of the Church throughout the millennia.
When our souls are in sin, we are paralyzed, like that servant boy: unable to free ourselves by our own power, needing God’s grace and most especially the graces that come in the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist.
Moreover, we - and indeed the whole world - “suffer dreadfully” because of sin.
Then, when the Lord is asked for help, he says at once that he will come and bring healing. We may not always hear him clearly nor may we see that healing according to our own schedules, but we always have the unfailing assurance of his pledge: in his word and in the Eucharist (“futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur - the pledge of future glory given to us” in Aquinas’ immortal phrase).
Like the Centurion, we are keenly aware of our own unworthiness, yet we too have faith in the Lord’s power: a power that can overcome our unworthiness, that can heal us, that can make us whole, and that can enable us to receive him and to enter into Communion with God himself.
In this Communion, we are not perfect equals with God: we recognize and acknowledge that we are subject to his authority and we symbolize this by the reverence that we make as we approach Communion.
We are also reminded that this Communion must make a difference in our lives and on everything that is within our power to affect (everything that is subject to us).
Having entered into this Communion, when our Lord tells us to go, we go; when he says, “Come,” we come; and when he tells us to do something, we do it.
Communion with the Lord presupposes faith. It also builds our faith.
The one bread and one cup of the Lord brings together a truly great multitude from the east and the west.
It is not only Communion with God, but also Communion with all of the People of God (which extends in some form all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).
Finally, as attested by St. Thomas Aquinas and so many others in the Church throughout the ages, the Eucharist is the foretaste of that great banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Vatican II put it this way
“The Lord left behind a pledge of this hope and strength for life's journey in that sacrament of faith where natural elements refined by man are gloriously changed into His Body and Blood, providing a meal of brotherly solidarity and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.” (Gaudium et Spes, 38)
The people of our Lord’s time took many things for granted. A Centurion – more than just an outsider, a pagan soldier in an army of oppression – helped our Lord to teach them about faith.
Likewise, we may take things for granted, even our Communion with the Lord, but through the story of the Centurion our Lord has much to teach us as well.
We must not take things for granted. We need to appreciate the great gifts of the Lord.
Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.
Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur puer meus.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant (boy) shall be healed.
...is found almost intact in the words by which the congregation prepares to receive our Lord in Holy Communion:
Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.
(Trying to be more meaningful than rigidly literal, the current official English version of the Mass translates ut intres sub tectum meum as “to receive you” – utilizing the English word’s multiple senses: namely, to receive something or to receive someone as a guest.)
In this Year of the Eucharist, it is especially good to consider the Eucharistic aspects of such Scripture passages, as have so many Fathers and other saints of the Church throughout the millennia.
When our souls are in sin, we are paralyzed, like that servant boy: unable to free ourselves by our own power, needing God’s grace and most especially the graces that come in the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist.
Moreover, we - and indeed the whole world - “suffer dreadfully” because of sin.
Then, when the Lord is asked for help, he says at once that he will come and bring healing. We may not always hear him clearly nor may we see that healing according to our own schedules, but we always have the unfailing assurance of his pledge: in his word and in the Eucharist (“futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur - the pledge of future glory given to us” in Aquinas’ immortal phrase).
Like the Centurion, we are keenly aware of our own unworthiness, yet we too have faith in the Lord’s power: a power that can overcome our unworthiness, that can heal us, that can make us whole, and that can enable us to receive him and to enter into Communion with God himself.
In this Communion, we are not perfect equals with God: we recognize and acknowledge that we are subject to his authority and we symbolize this by the reverence that we make as we approach Communion.
We are also reminded that this Communion must make a difference in our lives and on everything that is within our power to affect (everything that is subject to us).
Having entered into this Communion, when our Lord tells us to go, we go; when he says, “Come,” we come; and when he tells us to do something, we do it.
Communion with the Lord presupposes faith. It also builds our faith.
The one bread and one cup of the Lord brings together a truly great multitude from the east and the west.
It is not only Communion with God, but also Communion with all of the People of God (which extends in some form all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).
Finally, as attested by St. Thomas Aquinas and so many others in the Church throughout the ages, the Eucharist is the foretaste of that great banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Vatican II put it this way
“The Lord left behind a pledge of this hope and strength for life's journey in that sacrament of faith where natural elements refined by man are gloriously changed into His Body and Blood, providing a meal of brotherly solidarity and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.” (Gaudium et Spes, 38)
The people of our Lord’s time took many things for granted. A Centurion – more than just an outsider, a pagan soldier in an army of oppression – helped our Lord to teach them about faith.
Likewise, we may take things for granted, even our Communion with the Lord, but through the story of the Centurion our Lord has much to teach us as well.
We must not take things for granted. We need to appreciate the great gifts of the Lord.
Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.
posted by Penitens | 5:36 PM
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