Hearth & Altar

Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof. But just say the word and my servant will be healed. The centurion's faith is astonishing to Jesus - and Jesus is not easily astonished. Truly I have not found such faith in all of Israel. A Roman soldier, outside the covenant people, with better theology than the religious leaders: he understands authority. He commands and is obeyed. He believes the word of Jesus works the same way.

Just say the word. He does not need the physical presence. He does not need the touch. He trusts the word that travels across distance and heals without contact.

Lamentations is raw with the opposite experience - the silence of God in the ruins, the false prophets who did not lay bare the guilt to avert the fate, the children fainting in the streets. Cry out to the Lord. Pour out your heart like water in the Lord's presence. Lift up your hands to him for the life of your children.

The centurion's prayer and Lamentations' prayer are both addressed to the same Lord. The centurion trusts the word across distance; the poet of Lamentations cries through the silence. Both are faith.

• For our family, that the centurion's understanding of authority would be ours - trusting the word that travels across distance and heals without our arranging the presence, we pray to the Lord.
• For those in the Lamentations situation - crying through silence, pouring out hearts like water - that the Lord would hear the grief and act for the life of the children, we pray to the Lord.
• For those whose prophets gave them false visions and did not lay bare their guilt in time, that the true word would reach them now, we pray to the Lord.
• In this Sacred Heart month, for the heart that bears our infirmities and carries our diseases, we pray to the Lord.

Just say the word. Name one situation this week where you have been trying to arrange the conditions for the healing rather than simply asking for the word. Offer it to the Lord with the centurion's logic: you don't have to come to my house. Just say the word.

Lift up your hands to him for the life of your children. The Lamentations poet's prayer is the parent's prayer in the ruins: when the household has suffered, when the children are suffering, the lifting of the hands for the life of the children is the last act available. Do it. The Lord looks to his covenant.