Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of (Matthew 8: 5-11) in which a centurion asks Jesus to help his paralysed servant and says ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof, just give the word, and my servant will be cured’.

Fr Paul says this Gospel reading makes an important statement for the start of Advent: salvation is not just for the Chosen People, the children of Abraham, but salvation is for people of all nations who are prepared to go to the Lord.

The centurion may not have been a Jew, he might have been a Roman, he might have been from some other nation. But he knows that he has absolute authority over his troops, but he also knows that that authority has its limits. He has also learned to respect and reverence other values. In Capernaum, the lakeside town where Jesus seems to have taken up residence when he was hounded out of Nazareth, the centurion was the first gentile to recognize Jesus and submit his own military authority to a higher authority.

This is an encouraging message – salvation is offered for all.

Yet the citizens of Capernaum were no doubt waiting with confidence for salvation too, but they failed to take it when it came. Matthew our Gospel writer, a Jew, is well aware of the position and promises of Israel, and yet Matthew has no hesitation in telling us that of all the people in Israel it is the centurion who has the greatest faith.

Today, Fr Paul says, we might reflect on our own faith. Do we take our faith for granted? Do we put our trust somewhere else? Is the joy of Christ passing us by?

Postscript: Fr Paul says you might have found some of the words in today’s Gospel familiar and that is because it is the centurion’s words we use at Mass just prior to receiving communion – ‘Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed’.