Top That!

 

Developing a healthy rivalry of faith and love

12/01/2025

Matthew 8:5-11 When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully." He said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion said in reply, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man 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 and said to those following him, "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven."

Have you ever noticed a kind of friendly rivalry among the many religious order in the Church, like Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Benedictines? Even here in Fort Smith I have heard stories about how the Sisters of Mercy would try to one-up the St. Scholastica Nuns, and vice versa. One group of nuns say: “We’re going to run a high school!” And the other would respond, “Oh yeah? We’ll build a hospital!”

Every order wants their founder to be the most renowned saint. I remember when I discerned joining the Carmelites and asked: “Who founded the Carmelites?” And the Carmelite friars always smiled big and answered: “Elijah the Prophet did on Mt. Carmel in the Old Testament.”

That is, the Carmelites’ claim to fame is being older than all other religious orders. If you ask a diocesan priest, “Who started the diocesan priesthood?” We humbly answer: “Oh, just Jesus Christ.” In other words, “Top that!” Of course, all such one-upmanship is always motivated by faith and love for the Lord.

In the gospel today, Jesus puts all such friendly rivalry in proper perspective by a healing requested by a Roman centurion. In his petition to heal his servant at home, the centurion includes a remarkable profession of faith, saying, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”

Of course we immediately recognize those words because we repeat them right before Holy Communion when Jesus enters under our roof, our body. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, in a speech he delivered at West Point Academy to graduating officers in the Army, referred to the Centurion: “A Roman military officer made a profession of faith as profound as St. Peter and St. Thomas.”

But notice what Jesus says about the faith of this pagan soldier: “I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if your religious order was founded by St. Francis or the Prophet Elijah, or if you have built a hundred hospitals or scores of schools. What matters most in the end is faith to enter the kingdom and recline at the banquet.

I continue to see record attendance at Masses on Sundays here at I.C, in fact, we almost ran our of Hosts at the 10 a.m. Mass yesterday. And priests I talk to report similar swelling crowds. Our OCIA classes are so full this year that they would not all fit in the sanctuary yesterday when we celebrated the Rite of Entrance for the unbaptized catechumens and the Rite of Welcome for those baptized in another faith tradition.

That is, there are a lot of modern-day Roman centurions demonstrating great faith and who want to recline at the table of the Eucharist. And how should this influx of new blood in the Church make us cradle Catholics feel? Well, how did it make the Jews feel when Jesus complimented the Gentiles and added: “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith”?

Our Lord was essentially tweaking their Jewish noses and said, “Hey, wake up and get with the program because these Gentiles are on fire with faith and making your Jewish faith look like smoldering ash." In other words, our Lord wants to encourage a healthy and holy rivalry where the children of God try to out-do each other in faith and love.

Therefore, now is not the time to sit back, slack off, and say: “Great, let these new Catholics do everything.” Rather, we cradle Catholics must up our game and see how we can attract more people of faith to recline at the table of the Eucharist until the whole world is seated at this holy banquet.

Modern-day converts to Catholicism are detecting the poverty in the current culture, and by contrast, recognizing the great wealth hidden in the Church. Their new faith should inspire us Catholics of old faith not to exchange the wealth we have for the poverty of the world. New Catholics are basically saying to us old Catholics, “Top that!”

Praised be Jesus Christ!