SPEAKER_00: There's one sentence in today's gospel that has echoed through the church for two thousand years.
SPEAKER_00: We hear it at every mass.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
SPEAKER_00: Those words come from a Roman centurion, a pagan, a soldier, not a rabbi, not a priest, not even one of the chosen people.
SPEAKER_00: Yet Jesus has something astonishing.
SPEAKER_00: In no one in Israel have I found such faith.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine hearing that.
SPEAKER_00: Standing there are the scribes who have spent their entire lives studying scripture, the Pharisees who know every commandment, the religious leaders who can quote the law by heart.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus points to this Roman officer and says, This man, this one, understands faith better than all of you.
SPEAKER_00: What made his faith so extraordinary?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you notice that he never says, Jesus, I know you can heal my servant.
SPEAKER_00: Instead he explains why he knows.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I too am a man under authority.
SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't say I am a man with authority.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am a man under authority.
SPEAKER_00: He understood something profound.
SPEAKER_00: The reason he processed authority was because he first submitted to authority.
SPEAKER_00: A Roman centurion commanded roughly one hundred soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: When he gave an order, everyone obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: But those orders carried weight only because he himself was obedient to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: His authority flowed from the authority from above him.
SPEAKER_00: And then he looks at Jesus and he realizes something no one else seems to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not merely just perform miracles, Jesus speaks with the authority of God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: The wind obeys him.
SPEAKER_00: Demons obey him, disease obeys him, death itself will obey him.
SPEAKER_00: So the centurion concludes, if sickness obeys your authority the way soldiers obey mine, then you don't even need to come to my house.
SPEAKER_00: Just speak it.
SPEAKER_00: Only one word.
SPEAKER_00: That's remarkable faith.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if we have reduced faith to something much smaller.
SPEAKER_00: Many people think faith means believing that God exists.
SPEAKER_00: Well, even the demons believe God exists.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is much more.
SPEAKER_00: Faith means trusting God's authority over my life.
SPEAKER_00: It means believing that when Christ speaks, he knows better than I do.
SPEAKER_00: Even when I don't understand, even when his teaching is difficult, or even when it costs me something.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first reading shows us what happens when that authority is rejected.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we've been seeing that this week Jerusalem lies in ruins.
SPEAKER_00: The temple has been destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Children are starving, families are devastated.
SPEAKER_00: It is one of the saddest chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because for generations God's people listened to false prophets instead of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Here from the first reading, it says, Your prophets had for you false and specious visions.
SPEAKER_00: They did not lay bare your guilt.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they preached comforting words instead of truthful words.
SPEAKER_00: They told the people what they wanted to hear instead of what they needed to hear.
SPEAKER_00: That always ends in disaster.
SPEAKER_00: The lesson is a relevant one for us today.
SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of voices telling us to trust ourselves, to follow your heart, to create your own path, to you know truth, you can create your own truth.
SPEAKER_00: Do whatever makes you happy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the problem is that our hearts can deceive us.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture changes every few years.
SPEAKER_00: Public opinion rises and falls like the tide.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christ remains the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we listen to him, not because his words are easy, but because his words are always true.
SPEAKER_00: There's one final detail that I love.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says to the centurion, as you have believed, let it be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Not as you have hoped or not as you have wished, but as you have believed.
SPEAKER_00: Faith opens the door for God's power.
SPEAKER_00: Every time every time we come to Mass, just before Holy Communion, we repeat the centurion's words.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps today we should slow down and say them with meaning.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
SPEAKER_00: Those words, may they never become routine.
SPEAKER_00: May I may never pass over them.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we truly believe them, then we will we're saying something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: What we're saying is, Lord, I trust your authority more than my own.
SPEAKER_00: Speak your word, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Heal not only my body but my soul.
SPEAKER_00: Order my life according to your wisdom, because I know that only your voice leads me to freedom.
SPEAKER_00: That's the faith that amazed Jesus, and that's the faith he's still looking for you today.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.