Christ for All
Jun 18: Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Salvation isn’t meant for just a small, select group of people. God wants to gather everyone into his arms. As Timothy writes, we should be reaching out to others with prayer. In the Gospel, Jesus recognizes faith, even coming from outside Israel.
Reading 1
1 Tm 2:1-8
Beloved: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all.
This was the testimony at the proper time. For this I was appointed preacher and Apostle (I am speaking the truth, I am not lying), teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.
Once again, Christianity is shown to be a universalist religion. Some people take that as insulting, but it’s really not. It’s meant to be inclusive of everyone.1
God wills everyone to be saved, and so we have to pray for everyone. As Jesus points out, praying for our friends and family is normal; even pagans do that.2 So we pray for those in authority, no matter what else we may think of them, because what they do affects everyone.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 28:2, 7, 8-9
R. Blessed be the Lord, for he has heard my prayer.
Hear the sound of my pleading, when I cry to you,
lifting up my hands toward your holy shrine.
R. Blessed be the Lord, for he has heard my prayer.
The LORD is my strength and my shield.
In him my heart trusts, and I find help;
then my heart exults, and with my song I give him thanks.
R. Blessed be the Lord, for he has heard my prayer.
The LORD is the strength of his people,
the saving refuge of his anointed.
Save your people, and bless your inheritance;
feed them, and carry them forever!
R. Blessed be the Lord, for he has heard my prayer.
This is the song of someone who has fled to the Temple for sanctuary. When he says he’s lifting up his hands to God’s holy shrine, he means literally, the Ark of the Covenant.
This sense of awe in the presence of the Lord is what we’re meant to feel when the priest presents the host in mass, or when it’s displayed in Eucharistic adoration.
Alleluia
Jn 3:16
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Again, universalist. The Jews are the chosen people, because they’re where the revelation begins, but not where it ends.
Gospel
Lk 7:1-10
When Jesus had finished all his words to the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave who was ill and about to die, and he was valuable to him. When he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and save the life of his slave. They approached Jesus and strongly urged him to come, saying, "He deserves to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation and he built the synagogue for us."
And Jesus went with them, but when he was only a short distance from the house, the centurion sent friends to tell him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof. Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant be healed. For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come here, and he comes; and to my slave, Do this, and he does it."
When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him and, turning, said to the crowd following him, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." When the messengers returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.
Jesus tells us that the Centurion is a model of faith, and so we copy his words at every mass—”Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof.”
Jesus doesn’t actually have to go to the Centurion’s house. With just a word, He can heal the servant. And he does! Because of the man’s great faith, and despite the fact that he represented all the oppressive might of Rome by his office.
Jesus doesn’t care about the Centurion’s worldly positron, or his place of birth, or the language he speaks. Jesus cares about his, and our, faith.
Being open to inclusion does not, of course, mean accepting things that are contrary to Christianity.