Daily Gospel Reflection
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June 27, 2020
When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.”
The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”
When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour.
When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him.
That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
The centurion in the passage amazes me with his faithfulness. As an employee of the Roman empire, we would think of him as being the least likely to display such faith in Jesus and yet, he makes a bold assertion: “Lord…only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
Unlike the centurion, I have struggled with faith. Last year I felt like the Lord put me in an isolated place and confronted me regarding my faith. I experienced crushing losses, the pain of which felt insurmountable to me. Then I realized I had a decision to make: either trust that the Lord will deliver me through my pain or wallow in my grief and fear. While I wrestled with this choice, I examined my life and noticed how often I made my problems bigger than God instead of claiming the victory of God over my problems. I professed the faith but, in actuality, I was not trusting in that faith in my daily life. I worried and feared constantly – I had anxiety about living.
In contrast, the centurion knew in his heart that his petition would be granted. He did not want or need Jesus to enter his household for his request to be fulfilled.
After my confrontation with the Lord, I decided to trust and walk in the faith that God would restore me. I am deeply grateful for the gifts my faith has brought me. I now trust that God is always with me. Leaning into faith may not be a pleasant or easy process; however, it is one that leads to joy and blessed assurance.
I pray that we grow to have the faith of the centurion in difficult times and that we continue to persevere through our faith.
Prayer
What an extraordinary man that centurion must have been. He loved his slave, which was totally against the grain of his culture. He approached Jesus knowing his fellow soldiers would probably ridicule and mock him. He was humble and respectful, unusual for a soldier of an occupying force. May we approach you, Jesus, with the centurion’s expectant yet confident faith, knowing that you will show us your mercy and give us your help. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Cyril of Alexandria was at the center of one of the great dramas in Christian theology, and it is thanks to his courage and clear vision that our beliefs about Jesus have been faithfully passed on to us.
He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in the late 300s. His uncle led the Church in Alexandria, and when he died, Cyril was named bishop there. Cyril was known as a vigilant defender of the faith, and kept careful watch over the Christian communities that were under his supervision.
In 428 a monk and priest named Nestorius was named archbishop of Constantinople, a city that was the seat of the empire. Nestorius began proclaiming beliefs about Jesus that claimed he was really two persons—divine and human—and that the divine person of Jesus simply inhabited the human part of him. In short, he was teaching that Jesus was God who walked on earth wearing a human body like a suit. As a consequence, he said, Mary should not be called Mother of God, but only mother of the man, Jesus.
Cyril objected and raised the matter with the pope. The pope called a meeting in Rome to examine the claims and sided with Cyril, and had Cyril deliver the verdict to Nestorius, who was to be excommunicated unless he retracted his claims. Nestorius refused.
In 431 a large council was gathered at Ephesus to decide the matter once and for all—Cyril led the council and acted as the pope’s representative. Nestorius was in town, but refused to attend. In his absence, the council condemned his works and excommunicated him.
The story does not end there. A group of some 40 bishops from Antioch arrived to the council late, and supported Nestorius. They were not accepted to the council, so they formed their own council in town and claimed to depose Cyril.
Both sides appealed to the emperor. Confused, the emperor had both Cyril and Nestorius jailed until it could all be sorted out.
Finally, representatives from the pope arrived and explained the matter to the emperor, and Cyril was released and restored to honor. Nestorius was sent back to Antioch to retire to his monastery, and he was later further exiled to the desert. The group of bishops from Antioch reconciled with Cyril and gave a statement of their orthodoxy.
Until he died in 444, Cyril maintained the faith that was handed to him from the apostles. Even his contemporaries knew him to be a great defender of the faith. Because of his strong and clear leadership, the declarations of the Council of Ephesus continue to guide our faith today. Thanks to Cyril’s leadership, we understand Jesus’ Incarnation to mean that Jesus was fully God and fully man—one person with two natures.
This may seem like a semantic abstraction, but the implications are tremendous for Christian spirituality. In the Incarnation, God fully joined our humanity in the person of Jesus. This was not God paying us a visit or pretending to be human for a while—God became human in every way except for sin. This means that every part of our humanity has the potential to connect us with the divine—we can find God in beauty and goodness, in relationships and learning truth, for example. Even our daily experience—the mundane progression of our days—can be a source of connection to the divine for us.
St. Cyril of Alexandria has been named a doctor of the Church, a title given to 37 saints who are known for elucidating the faith by their words or example—he is known as the Doctor of the Incarnation. His relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, you guided the Church through heresy and handed us the faith we live today—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Cyril of Alexandria available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed March 19, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
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