A Homily for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

+ The words of the Roman centurion of this morning’s Gospel, full of faith in Our Lord’s power to heal, echo down the centuries: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” We know them best by praying them three times before the reception of Holy Communion—a practice already in place when this Church was built over a thousand years ago and which is shared also in the liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
 
Of course, in praying them we do not ask for “my servant” to be healed. In the Church’s tradition these words are appositely adapted to ask that “my soul” shall be healed. Dómine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanábitur ánima mea.
 
This development is instructive. The centurion asked for the restoration to physical health of his servant and, given his great faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ of God, his prayer was answered. We too often pray for restoration to full health for ourselves and others: and rightly. Sickness and its attendant suffering are not directly willed by God—they are the effects of Original Sin that are tolerated and, certainly, out of which much good can be wrought, certainly—but they are not that which Almighty God wills for His people. The Gospels are full of miracles of healing and the Church’s history is replete with granting of prayers for the restoration of health and life.
 
Yet we pray “et sanábitur ánima mea”—asking that my soul may be healed. This is really quite a different request, for a healthy body can contain a very, very sick soul, and a body racked with sickness and pain that is close to the end of its earthly life can house a soul that is more beautiful than anything we can imagine on this earth.
 
Yes, body and soul form a unity in this life and we need healthy bodies in order to do God’s will, to build up His Kingdom on earth through the worship of Him that is His due and through the witness of our service of others, and we may request the healing of the body from Our Lord without scruple. Suffering and illness are not ends in themselves in which to rejoice with Manichean or Jansenist fervour!
 
But our oft repeated Dómine, non sum dignus… teaches us something else: the primacy of the soul. For when our bodies have finished their service on this earth and lie dead, our souls will live forever, either in the unending glory of heaven, perhaps after the purification necessary in purgatory or, if we knowingly and willingly persist in rejecting God and the teaching of His Church, they shall endure the eternal torments of hell. Our participation in the general resurrection of the dead at the end of time will be futile if we find ourselves with our resurrected body eternally separated from God and others.
 
In our consumerist, materialistic world we care about our bodies first and foremost. Again, it is right to take due care of the gifts of life and health so that they may be used to love and serve God in this life. But even bodily life is not an end in itself—a reality which was utterly eclipsed in the civil and even ecclesiastical policies enacted during the pandemic a few years ago. No. The soul and its eternal salvation come first. There is no ultimate point in being the best-looking man or woman in the world who has never endured a day of sickness or pain and who has enjoyed every pleasure this world can offer if my soul will be damned to hell for all eternity.
 
This is why the Church’s Sacred Liturgy, in her wisdom, has us beat our breasts in humility and pray Dómine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanábitur ánima mea. For the humility that recognises that we are sinners in need of God’s grace and mercy opens the doors of our hearts to the healing He wishes to give us. It is the key that unlocks the chains with which the devil binds us. It expresses the same faith as that of the centurion and shall receive the same reward.
 
Of course, we pray this prayer before the distribution of Holy Communion at Mass and we know that if we are conscious of grave/mortal sin that we have not confessed in the Sacrament of Penance we must refrain from physically receiving the Body of Christ. But even if that is the case, we can and should pray this prayer—perhaps with even greater fervour because our need for the healing of our soul may be all the more urgent. So too, in this case, we must not forget the rich tradition of making a spiritual communion by humbly recognising our sins and fervently asking Our Lord to come into our heart and mind and soul and body and to fill us with the grace of true repentance and the resolution to amend our life as necessary. In God’s mercy such genuine humility—even when our actions may have caused great offense to God—will not go unrewarded.
 
And even when we are in a state of grace we do well to strike our breast with the same humility, for the reception of Holy Communion is not a prize for the proud, but the spiritual sustenance provided for those who are persevering on the pilgrimage to our heavenly home.
 
In this and in every Mass each one of us can and should pray Dómine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanábitur ánima mea with the faith of the centurion and with the humility that the knowledge of our sinfulness brings. Only then shall we receive the gift of healing our Lord so wishes to impart.