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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Mt 8:5-17): 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...

The mystery of the divine "impotence"

Fr. Antoni CAROL i Hostench (Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain)

Today, with Jesus Christ, we admire amazed the words of the centurion. We are touched by his concern for one servant. And we are convinced by the common sense with which he captures the divine power. In the "Lord’s Prayer" we confess that God is the Almighty Father. But, how can we reconcile His infinite power with the presence of evil in the world? It is the apparent mystery of the divine impotence.

God is not a "police of the cosmos", that acts to bring order —after our own schemes— into all the corners of the Universe. He is the Father and His rule is providential. He may appear, eventually, as absent and unable to prevent evil. However, God Father has revealed His omnipotence in the most mysterious way, through the voluntary annihilation and Resurrection of His Son.

—O Lord, you are so great that in Jesus You have become small. And, from the very Cross You teach us how to transform evil in a gesture of love. Your "weakness" is stronger than the strength of men.