29/11/2021

The Church prepares for the nativity of Jesus the true man and Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the true God by recalling from the Old Testament scripture that points to a change in the revealed relationship between God and Man. Today that change is celebrated by Isaiah and confirmed by Jesus in Galilee. We are told nothing about the truly pagan centurian except that he had a blind faith in the authority of this Jew, one of the subject people to be controlled by his cohort.

Jesus tells us that the centurian's is true faith. That must be hard for his Jewish disciples to stomach for, even though a subject people the Jewish Galileans, knew that they were God's Chosen People, so the gentiles who filled Galilee were held in contempt for their eating of pigs and all the other ways they did not follow the Law.

Even today we can ask how the Centurian was given the grace to believe in the way Jesus knew that he did. We all know so much more than he did and struggle to follow and believe the teaching of Jesus and his Church. What happened subsequently in the life of that centurian and his daughter who was saved by Jesus? Were they among those who continued to follow Our Lord but were devastated by Golgotha?

Dear Lord let my faith be as sharp as the centurian's sword to cut through all the clouds of doubt and sin and come to the holiness that is a result of your grace and sacrifice.