Jesus, the centurion and the servant he “loved”
Homily on Matteo 8.5-13* by Don Hugues pronounced in the Church of San Francesco di Sales in Laveu (Liegi, France) on December 3, 2000, freely translated by Francesca Macilletti
Lord Jesus, you who come to save us, in this episode of the Gospel, is your gaze that amazes me again. Come to bring a good news to the men and women of our times. Come and tell him: God loves you, God wants you standing, live; God wants you to have life in His fullness. This is why you came out of the father and came to us. In your face, there is the face of our celestial father that we can contemplate; In your gaze, it is the love gaze of our creator that we can meet. Who was this centurion? And who was this servant? On the one hand, a pagan, of course, of those whose presence itself would be enough to unravel a good Jew, a rabbi moreover! And its servant? Friend, lover? A Protestant brother, a shepherd, sees more than a relationship between master and slave. The words of the Greek text can, in fact, suggest it. It is perhaps for this reason that the centurion is unworthy of welcoming you under his roof: not only pay, moreover homosexual. Maybe yes, maybe not. It is necessary that this centurion will love his servant to look for you, the Jewish master, in full occupied territory and beg you, he who has the habit of commanding and being obeyed! This must not escape you and, without a doubt, this also arouses your admiration. That servant is like a son for him. And you are the Son loved by the Father who knows, like you, who dirgi towards the cross to suffer and die. Son of the Most High, even yours you are fully and totally man, with a heart capable of ". And you have shown it more than once. It excites you to see this love and this suffering.
The pain of losing the friend will not inflict it to those who love. What men will do with you who are God, you can't do it with them! You will heal that servant, you who will become the servant who suffers for all; You will laugh at him to his master, as you will do with the son of the widow, Lazzaro, who will be laughing at his sisters, Marta and Maria. Faith that surprises you so much comes from love. And it is the love that touches you, you, the God who is love and from which all love comes; Three and one, like nothing on this earth.
It is the love that amaze you, when it is born and grows, when it blooms and blossoms in all what you call to love, to love like you, to the bottom, to the cross, until it loses its life. In that paralyzed servant, condemned to death, don't you see our brothers, sisters, children, spouses and friends in Africa and elsewhere, everywhere in the world, affected by AIDS? Do you not see, Jesus, all passionate love, poignant, brave, wounded, disfigured, grandiose, transfigured? Don't you see these attempts to love? It is you who immediately arises in us the love that we will try for you eternally. You who come to save us all, you who come to love us, healic!
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* In Matteo's story that tells the request for a centurion to save their servant, experts think having perceived the recognition of Christ for love between men, love all the stronger that manifests itself between two beings of different conditions, a master and his servant.
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Original text: A The Analyse de st Mathieu Narrant the demande du centurion de sauver are serveiteur
