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.” 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. (Matthew 8:5-11)

One of my favorite set of prayers in our new liturgy just so happen to have their source in today’s gospel reading. Right before communion our new set of prayers call for us to say, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” We are called upon to mirror the great faith and humility of this soldier who understood properly who he was speaking to. He knew that he stood before Christ the King, who could and did heal his servant. He also knew who he was, a sinner who was unworthy to have Jesus enter his house.

Each time before receiving the Eucharist we do well to remember both the great power that Christ has for healing our souls and the fact that this has nothing to do with our own worthiness. It has all to do with God’s overflowing love for us, “while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8) Let us give thanks for that same love.

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The Way I See It: Peace

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

(2 Corinthians 12:10)

Have you ever felt that you were not worthy to use the name Christian when describing yourself? Have you ever struggled with that one particular weakness that just seems to get the better of you, no matter how hard you try to overcome it? Do you find yourself in what seems to be a losing battle when it comes to living a life of holiness? If so, give thanks. You can count yourself among many other holy men and women who have gone before you.

Recently I have been reflecting on the life of the patron saint of our parish, St. Thomas. In addition to the privilege of serving as the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, I have recently been given the opportunity to spend more time with the faithful of St. Thomas the Apostle Ukrainian Catholic Mission. One of the prayers that is sung each Sunday by the faithful there is the Troparion of St. Thomas the Apostle which includes this line:

By your lack of faith, you proclaimed the certainty of Christ’s resurrection.

Really? Is that how it works? Can God use lack of faith to proclaim certainty? Apparently so. At least that’s how things happened with St. Thomas.

I always imagine St. Thomas as a stubborn man, a man who once having made up his mind about something was not swayed very easily by the crowd, or even by his closest friends. He was confident in his own judgments and not afraid to speak out when he thought it necessary. The word I most associate with St. Thomas is courage. He was not afraid to take an unpopular stand and he was not afraid to put his life on the line for the things that were important. We see this clearly in the 11th chapter of John’s gospel. When all the other apostles are afraid of what might happen if Jesus returns to Judea at the death of Lazarus, it is St. Thomas who says, “Let us go to die with Him!” (John 11:16)

Perhaps the most amazing act of courage recorded about St. Thomas in the Bible is his encounter with Jesus following the resurrection. For someone with such a lack of faith, he showed great courage and faith when he had to eat his own words at the invitation of  Jesus to test the wounds in His hands and feet, by placing his hands in His side. Sometimes I think we miss the humility it must have taken for St. Thomas to be invited to do this. It was only a few days before that he dramatically denied Christ’s resurrection in the presence of his friends. Now he was being asked to follow through on a lost bet, so to speak, in front of those same friends. But true to form he was able to set aside his own pride by not worrying about what they might think in that particular moment. “My Lord and my God!”, he exclaimed, giving us one of the most powerful statements of faith in the history of Christianity.

Christ can transform our weakness into strength if we let Him. He can take our failures and make them a powerful witness to others. The only thing He needs from us is trust, to continue responding to Him with faith. If we can just have the courage to place ourselves before Him exactly as we are, warts and all, He can transform us into something much greater than we could ever imagine. Remember that story Jesus once told about the mustard seed? He wasn’t kidding about that. Give God a chance to work with your weaknesses and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed and neither will He.

Fear versus faith is at the heart of my homily for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time. You can listen here.

The Church has sought to preserve this great heritage of faith because she believes that the way she prays defines who she professes to be.

As a high school freshman I arrived each day about an hour before classes began. All the students gathered in the cafeteria, which we referred to as The Commons, where we would socialize, eat breakfast and finish the homework that we hadn’t done the night before at home. This was my routine for several months until one day I discovered a second option, daily mass. I’m not sure why I decided one morning to forego chatting with my friends in favor of the chapel, but I ended up returning the next day, and the next, and soon had created a new morning routine.

As I continued attending daily mass each day before school a couple of strange things began to happen. The first was I began to listen to the readings in a new way. I listened to what was proclaimed and then spent the rest of the day looking for the place where God intended his Word to be lived out in my life. Once I started to pay attention and to look for God throughout the day, I never failed to see Him at work. The second thing that happened was that I began to listen to the words of the prayers at mass, especially the Eucharistic Prayers. It was in those prayers that I began to understand everything that I needed to know about my Catholic faith. Time and time again I would return to the prayers of the mass when later in college I was asked to explain what it is that we Catholics believe.

One of the things that these early experiences of the mass taught me is that when it comes to the liturgy, words matter. Words matter because this liturgy that we pray together is like a roadmap to God. If the map is not precise, we can easily end up lost. I am happy that the Church is taking the step to update the words with which we pray so that they may reflect even more the faith that we profess and share.

How has the Eucharist deepened your life of faith?

Last night I received a short message from a friend commenting on this new blog and I have been reflecting upon it ever since. “I enjoyed that. It makes me wish I still believed in God,” he wrote. “Me too,” I thought to myself.

The first thing one sees when entering the church where I currently reside is our chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is kept. Over the doors are the words, “My Lord And My God”, the same words once spoken by Saint Thomas when he realized that beyond all belief Jesus was indeed risen from the dead and standing before him. Thomas is a very appealing figure within Christianity and maybe even more so within American culture in particular. Thomas expresses what I think many of us feel when confronted with those who wish to share the faith with us. When the other apostles announce to him the good news that Jesus is risen he looks them square in the eyes and says, “don’t tell me, show me“. Thomas makes it clear by his statement that he desperately wants to believe what his friends have told him, but he needs solid evidence. “I’ll never believe it without probing the nailprints in his hands, without putting my finger in the nailmarks and my hand into his side.”

The area of the county where I grew up is called the Bible Belt. In Chattanooga we even went so far as to say that we lived in the buckle of the Bible Belt. One peculiar aspect of growing up in the Bible Belt is the number of times one can answer the door to find members of various churches who want to speak to you about whether or not you have been saved. If you were not saved, and we as Roman Catholics were never even considered to be Christians, they would begin to talk about why joining their particular church is essential in order to avoid the eternal damnation of your soul. Though I never doubted the sincerity of those who would show up regularly on my doorstep, I have often wondered if they do not turn more people away from Christianity than they bring to it. Most of us, like Thomas, need more than just words to be able to see Christ’s presence in the world. One of my favorite stories involving door to door evangelists involves a young girl who when asked, “Have you found Jesus?” replied in all sincerity, “No. I didn’t know he was lost.”

The courage of Saint Thomas allows me to understand that even when I feel lost, when it seems like God is completely absent and I can’t find Him, it is God who comes looking for me. Jesus is not lost, He is the one who seeks the lost, a group that included Saint Thomas and most certainly includes you and me.

(This post originally was published September 5, 2008.)