Message of Abbot Paul - Monday 18th September 2023
Abbot Paul • September 17, 2023
When you read this short message, I hope to be in Paris for a meeting of the International Team of A.I.M, the Alliance for International Monasticism, the joint Benedictine Cistercian N.G.O that supports monastic foundations in developing countries. As you might know, I have worked with A.I.M as a volunteer for the past twenty-two years, my remit being Latin America (but not Brazil) and the Caribbean.
It has been a wonderful experience, supporting so many monastic communities, visiting them, running workshops, teaching courses, preaching retreats, conducting visitations and helping out with projects funded by our benefactors. I have been truly blessed to have met and got to know and admire so many nuns, sisters and monks, their communities, neighbours, regions and countries. I think this will be my last visit to Paris, as I would like to hand over to a younger person the strenuous programme that I carried out willingly and enthusiastically before Covid. I fear I wouldn’t have the energy to start up again, especially as I now have duties at Leominster and Bromyard, nearer home in Herefordshire.
Our Gospel passage from Luke, (Lk 7: 1-10), presents us with the meeting between a centurion and Jesus and the healing of the man’s servant. It’s a beautiful account, as only Luke can tell it. Luke was a poet who wrote in prose! He focusses on the humility of the centurion, whose example we can all follow. Just in case you don’t have the text in front of you, here it is in full.
“When Jesus had come to the end of all he wanted the people to hear, he went into Capernaum. A centurion there had a servant, a favourite of his, who was sick and near death. Having heard about Jesus he sent some Jewish elders to him to ask him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him. ‘He deserves this of you’ they said ‘because he is friendly towards our people; in fact, he is the one who built the synagogue.’ So Jesus went with them, and was not very far from the house when the centurion sent word to him by some friends: ‘Sir,’ he said ‘do not put yourself to trouble; because I am not worthy to have you under my roof; and for this same reason I did not presume to come to you myself; but give the word and let my servant be cured. For I am under authority myself, and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man: Go, and he goes; to another: Come here, and he comes; to my servant: Do this, and he does it.’ When Jesus heard these words, he was astonished at him and, turning round, said to the crowd following him, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found faith like this.’ And when the messengers got back to the house, they found the servant in perfect health.”
It’s such a perfectly told story, that it seems a pity to comment on it at all. There is, of course, a miracle of healing, where Jesus doesn’t need to be present at the sick servant’s side, but above all, it’s a story about humility and faith on the part of an outsider, a centurion, who must have been a “Godfearer’, but not someone of the household of the faith. Jesus’ words to the crowds are of vital importance and provide us with an essential lesson. “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found faith like this.” At times, I have found a deeper, more authentic faith and a greater humility among those who are not Christian or Catholic. We must be prepared to learn from Jesus and acknowledge this, as Peter did when he entered the house of Cornelius, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, (Ac 10 & 11).
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