Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.
A reflection on the weekday readings, for Monday of the First Week of Advent, by Father Perry.
By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor
+ With all of the knowledge and prosperity and technology, and all of the resources, energy, skills, and social development, one would think that mankind and womankind would have finally mastered the prayer for and reality of peace.
Psalm 122 song-fully implores, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem./ May peace be within your walls./ I will say, ‘Peace be within you.'”
And yet on this very day in this every year of 2023, we still do not or will not, or cannot get it right.
We, as a church, have already begun on this the first Monday of the first week of Advent to pray again for peace as we prepare ourselves to welcome, once again, the prince of peace.
Is it all just words? Do we mean it? Do we really want it?
And if the divine truly entered into the human when Christ was born — Emmanuel, God with us — why has not peace yet been achieved?
It is almost as if we chose blindness and deafness rather than seeing and hearing both with the eyes and ears, and especially with the heart.
And then in today’s Gospel, a super wonder occurs.
A centurion — a Gentile — approaches Jesus and appeals not even with a question fully formed, but beginning with a statement of fact which would have become a question if Jesus had not “beat him to the punch.”
The centurion pleadingly states to Jesus, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”
If there was a question in there somewhere, it was yet to be clearly formed.
But Jesus immediately responded with his typical love and desire to heal and make whole, “I will come and cure him.”
A perfect end to a perfect story!
But not so. This centurion knew he was in the presence of something or someone holy, someone who had true power.
And this centurion felt humbled, even in the process of seeking a gift of healing for a beloved servant.
And he also understood authority and respect for authority, and so declared his inadequacy and unworthiness to, “have you [Jesus] enter under my roof.”
And he even declared his belief on the spot that a simple word from Jesus’ mouth could effect a “long distance healing miracle” that would save his beloved servant, and once again make him whole.
What faith! What an articulation of simply profound and totally courageous confidence in Jesus!
So much so that the Gospel confirms that even Jesus was amazed.
And as Isaiah stated so clearly that this, as “the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it.”
Jesus, too, noted that people would come from the east and west, and presumably the north and south.
Everywhere! For what it is worth, here in 2023, what began with a tiny child — in the year we see BC becoming AD — has become a numerous faith of over 2 billion Catholics and numerous Christians of other denominations.
Who would have thought? Pretty amazing!
But we still have not, apparently, figured out that we could and should be able to embrace the message of peace from the prince of peace; to truly make peace a lived reality, today.
Maybe we need a little more of that humility of the centurion in today’s Gospel, and a little less arrogance and hunger for power!
Maybe. And would not this be truly amazing, too, that peace will come to Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Palestine, the Ukraine, and Russia, and into the heart of every man and woman who claims to know the Lord Jesus!
Perhaps like the centurion we, too, might utter words of faith that even Jesus would be amazed at!
One would hope!
Father Perry Dean Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com.
