PRAYER: “KEEP US ALERT, WE PRAY, O LORD OUR GOD, AS WE AWAIT THE ADVENT OF CHRIST YOUR SON, SO THAT, WHEN HE COMES AND KNOCKS, HE MAY FIND US WATCHFUL IN PRAYER AND EXULTANT IN HIS PRAISE. WHO LIVES AND REIGNS WITH YOU IN THE UNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN”
Is 4:2-6; Ps 121:1-9 and Mt 8:5-11.
The importance of humility, that great virtue, can never be overemphasised. It can heal and cure sicknesses/illnesses that can never be cured. It can solve impossible problems and challenges, it is able to give answers to humanly tough, existential questions, it is able to move the hearts of hardened people to action, and it is able to develop, transform, promote and change people’s lives. Humility can overcome all obstacles and barriers.
Humility has made or done it for the centurion in the Gospel. He could have let or allowed many obstacles stand between him and Jesus-pride, doubt, money, language, distance, time, self-sufficiency, power, race and what have you. But he did not allow these barriers to block his approach to Jesus. His humility overcame all these obstacles.
Indeed, when we are humble, we can be protected and sheltered by God’s glory, either directly or indirectly through fellow human beings. Many people throughout the history of humanity, including our time, have been left alone to stumble and perish in their pride and arrogance. But this cannot be blamed on anyone but themselves because they were/are not aware that ‘our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth and all they contain’.
However, pride and arrogance can sometimes make us think that ‘our help comes from us but not from God’. This is also a deep expression of faith. It means that without God, I cannot find help anywhere, I cannot find solutions to my problems/challenges, and I cannot overcome my obstacles.
What are the obstacles, the impossible things in your life? What are the frustrations, disappointments, depression, causing a lack of faith or little faith in you? We need, today, to learn from or imitate the good example of the Roman Officer (centurion). Out of humility and deep faith, he says: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed".
Once again, these are words expressing humility and deep faith, and they are the very words we say when the Eucharist is elevated with the main celebrant's words: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb"
May God grant us a bit of the centurion’s faith and humility to always approach God with humility and deep faith. May God take away our pride and arrogance, and help us one day, ‘recline with him and his saints at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven’ Stay blessed and may your working week be blissful and fruitful.
WE MEDITATE TODAY, MONDAY, ON THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES: ‘THE ANNUNCIATION, THE VISITATION, THE BIRTH OF JESUS, THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE AND THE FINDING OF THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE’. (LET US PRAY FOR HUMILITY, LOVE OF NEIGHBOUR, POVERTY IN SPIRIT, OBEDIENCE AND JOY IN FINDING JESUS) “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen”.
PRAYER: “MAY THESE MYSTERIES, O LORD, IN WHICH WE HAVE PARTICIPATED, PROFIT US, WE PRAY, FOR EVEN NOW, AS WE WALK AMID PASSING THINGS, YOU TEACH US BY THEM TO LOVE THE THINGS OF HEAVEN AND HOLD FAST TO WHAT ENDURES. THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN”.
Rev. Fr. Aloysius Kpiebaya, Catholic Diocese of Wa, UW/R, Ghana. (00233) 0207867239/0545462863. Email: aloybaya20@yahoo.
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