Monday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 12, 2022

The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Luke 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.

This feast was added to the Church calendar in 1684 to commemorate the victory of the Catholic armies of the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland under King John III Sobieski over the Ottoman Turks, who were threatening to overrun Europe at that time.  Thanks to this decisive  victory, the Ottomans never again threatened Western Europe, and from then on underwent a slow decline which resulted in most of the Balkans being freed from Moslem rule by the beginning of the twentieth century.  Over the centuries, three feasts were added to the calendar in celebration of God’s preserving Christendom from the Muslims: the Feast of the Transfiguration on August 6; the present feast; and the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7.  The calendar resulting from the Second Vatican Council did not include the feast, but Pope John Paul II reinstated it some years later.  It is fitting that the Virgin Mary’s name is connected to this victory, for she is “terrible as an army in battle array” (Song of Songs 6, 9), that is, mighty to deliver those who love her from the temptations and threats of all our enemies.

In the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, we find the Lord at Capernaum after a long tour of preaching and healing.  He has no sooner arrived than he is met with the leaders of the town, who implore him to go to the house of the local centurion in order to heal his slave.  The fact that the leaders praise the centurion for building their synagogue tells us that they had some doubt that the Lord would do this for a Gentile.  Since this event occurs early in the Lord’s Public Life, they may have thought that he belonged to the Pharisees or at least shared some of their tendencies.  But the Lord does not need to be urged to do a good deed for anyone and so he heads off.  He makes his way through the countryside, following the elders of the Jews who knew where his house lay.  The Lord Jesus had nearly come to the house when messengers arrived forestalling him.  They had a new message from the centurion: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof.”  We might wonder how the centurion knew the Lord was coming.  One of the elders, or a messenger sent by him, must have hurried ahead to let the centurion know.  This elder or messenger would not have gotten that much of a lead over Jesus because the Lord headed out as soon as he heard that he was needed.  This would explain why these messengers stopped him just before he came to the house.  As to the message itself, it is interesting that the elders of the Jews had said that the man was worthy of this favor, but the man himself stated that he was not.  It is possible that the elder or messenger who had brought the news of the Lord’s coming had explained to the centurion how they had praised him.  The centurion, however, did not want the Lord to think that he believed himself deserving of a favor.  Although in the employ of the Roman Empire, he fostered no illusions about himself.  

“Say the word and let my servant be healed.”  This prayer — for that is what it is — moved the Lord very much because of its humility and simplicity.  Very often, when we need some kind of help we make a long story about our unfortunate circumstances and why we deserve help.  Sometimes we get so tied up in our story that the person we are asking cannot tell what we want.  The simplicity of this prayer says to the Lord: I can do nothing of myself.  Only you can help me.  And that is what the Lord wants to hear from us.  Everything else is pride.  “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  That is, “among the Jews”.  The Lord speaks this aloud so that the messengers, the elders of the Jews, and his disciples can hear this.  He says this not so much as a reproach but as praise of the Gentile’s prayer that will teach all others how to approach him, and how to pray.

When we look at our Lady’s words, as both St. Luke and St. John record them for us, we see how directly, humbly, and simply she speaks with humans, angels, and her Son.  She does not clouds her questions with extraneous matter nor try to justify why someone should do what she asks.  She asks, and receives.