Instruction for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost (20)

The centurion answered the Lord and said: Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof; but only speak a word, and my servant will be healed (Mt 8:8).

In today’s Gospel, my brethren, there was set before you the sacred account of the miraculous healing, by Jesus Christ, of the servant of a Roman centurion in the city of Capernaum. The servant was healed by a single word of the Savior, on account of the great faith and humble petition of the centurion, a pagan who had come in person to the Divine Physician. Lord! the centurion said to Him, my servant lies at home paralyzed, grievously tormented. Jesus told him: I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said: Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof, but only speak a word, and my servant will be healed; for, he continued, I too am a man under authority, but having soldiers under me, I say to one: go, and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes; and to my servant: do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this, the Gospel goes on to say, He marveled, and said to those who followed Him: truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel — that is, among the Jews; and, a little further on, the Lord says to him, go your way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. And his servant was healed that same hour (Mt 8:5-13). Happy the servant, to have had so good, so kind, so believing a master! Worthy of every praise, too, is the master, who loved his servant as a father, and looked upon Jesus Christ and His works with a simple faith! He will now, and at the dread judgment, at the Lord’s second coming, serve to expose the unbelief and cunning of many, many present-day Christians, who do not believe in the Lord and boldly deny His miracles and His second coming, saying: where is the promise of His coming (2Pet 3:4) and the end of the age? (Mt 24:3). Or, what amounts to the same thing—that there will be no second coming at all. But let us leave these foolish and proud unbelievers, and let us instead speak together, you and I, of faith, for our own edification and salvation, and of how harmful unbelief is—how it pushes away from us the saving right hand of God. What, then, shall we now say of faith? This: that faith in the Lord, in His word—a living, unwavering faith—is the key to the inexhaustible treasury of all the gifts of God, a life-giving power, granted by God to simple souls, who do not reason cunningly, and to humble ones, and drawing down upon them the riches of God’s bounty. Let us prove this with examples. The example of the Roman centurion is before our eyes: his simple, firm faith in the omnipotence of Jesus Christ astonished the Lord Himself, and at once drew down upon the centurion and his sick servant the mercy of God: go your way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. And his servant was healed that same hour (Mt 8:13).

Two blind men cry out to Jesus Christ for the healing of their eyes: Son of David, have mercy on us! The Lord commands that they be brought to Him, and asks them: do you believe that I am able to do this? And when they answered: we believe — He healed them, saying: according to your faith let it be to you: and immediately their eyes were opened (Mt 9:27-30).

Once a paralyzed man is brought to Jesus Christ, and the Lord, seeing the faith of those who carried him, said to the paralytic, for their faith’s sake: be of good cheer, child; your sins are forgiven you; rise, take up your bed, and go to your house; and the sick man arose, took up his bed, and went home (Mt 9:2,6,7).

A woman with an issue of blood, ill with her ailment for twelve years, the Lord healed for her faith, through her touching His garment, saying: be of good cheer, daughter! your faith has made you well (Mt 9:22).

But once there was an occasion with the Savior’s own disciples: a certain father had a demon-possessed son, and brought him to them for healing, but they could not heal him. Why was this? Because of the unbelief of this sick boy’s father—and of Christ’s own disciples. O faithless and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? — the Lord said to this father and to those standing there. Bring him here to Me. And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon went out of him, and the boy was healed that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said: why could we not cast him out? Jesus said to them: because of your unbelief; and He added: I say to you: if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, «move from here to there,» and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting (Mt 17:14-21). And yet the apostles fell, at times, into the temptation of unbelief only up until the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost; but after the descent of the Holy Spirit they never again fell into unbelief, but always had an unshakeable faith, and by it worked countless miracles: healed every kind of sickness, cast out demons by a word, raised the dead. The holy servants of God, of ancient and of more recent times, have worked, by faith, a multitude of miracles, as you yourselves have heard and read. How many even in our own day have received, by their faith, numerous healings, wondrous deliverance from misfortunes and calamities, from the tormenting of demons! How many have been miraculously healed by receiving the Life-Giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ! How many healings have there been, and are there still, from the relics of the holy servants of God, or from wonder-working holy icons, or simply from sincere prayer, offered in faith and repentance, to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother, or to the holy servants of God? A certain devout pastor, an acquaintance of mine, told me sincerely that, by a prayer of faith, in simplicity of heart, he had obtained from the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God a multitude of wondrous mercies of God for simple people who had asked for his prayerful help, and, in proof of this, was ready to bring before me, in person, all those who had been found worthy of God’s merciful visitation and could testify, with their own living voice, to the truth of his words. I, he said of himself, am an ordinary mortal, a much-sinning man, no different from other people in any feats of asceticism—neither fasting, nor all-night vigils of prayer; I allow myself to eat and drink what is permitted, at home and among others—but I have faith in the Lord, I live in constant repentance, I thank the Lord for everything I receive from His bounty: and I am not put to shame. Every day I receive salvation from the life-originating right hand of God; every day the Lord surrounds me with the joys of deliverance. If anyone asks me to pray with him for himself, I do not refuse, so long as I notice in the one who asks a sincere faith and a sincere desire for salvation: and faith and hope are never put to shame.

See, then, brethren: even in our own time, so poor in faith, a believer can still ask of the Lord all that is needful for salvation. Believe, then, all of you, without doubting, in the Lord, who abides with us, and will abide with us, all the days until the end of the age; live piously, repent sincerely, amend your life, ask of the Lord, with unwavering faith, for what is good and beneficial—and you shall receive it. Amen.