We are over a year into the new wording of Mass, with congregation and celebrant adjusting to the changes. Anything one repeats enough becomes easier because it becomes more familiar. It has not been easy, with the priest’s page-turning and with nearby folks in the pews still saying the old way as we read the prayer cards with the new. They told us it would take time.
One of the many changes that people have asked about is the prayer just before Communion. We admit our unworthiness, a good affirmation if we are about to commune, or communicate, with the Lord who chooses to become so close and accessible. We used to say, “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” The meaning was clear even to the children.
We now say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” It seems strange, even if we can see the closeness of the two statements, but we wonder if the new way means the roof of our mouth. If so, that is awkward devotion. But the prayers of good liturgy consciously try to use the words of Scripture, God’s word in human words, which are no good to us if we do not understand them. And since Scripture was written millennia ago, it might need some explanation if it is going to be our prayer, our thought.
Matthew (chapter 8, verses 5-10 and 13) narrates how a Roman centurion, a commanding officer, came to Jesus hoping that he could prevail on the Lord to work one of the miracles he had seen and heard about. So he asked Jesus to come to his house where his serving boy was paralyzed on a sick bed, suffering painfully. Yet the soldier knew the strict customs of the Jews, most of whom considered him and his troops an unwelcome and in fact a hostile and menacing force. Romans had occupied Israel since 63 B.C., when General Pompey invaded and took control. In an empire that in its best days stretched from Scotland to India to Morocco, tight control was used to crush any uprising. And in Jesus’ Israel, many were trying to marshal that very thing.
The Zealots were the insurrectionists — terrorists, if you will — who were called, in Latin, Siccarii, dagger carriers. They did not just carry them. They used them to try to overthrow the Roman rule violently. Simon the Zealot was one of the Twelve, something that did not keep Jesus from including him in his band of followers.
The strict customs forbade Jews from even entering a gentile’s house, much less a hated Roman’s. So in deference to Jesus’ Jewish sensitivities, the centurion asked Jesus to heal the boy from a distance. He claimed to be unworthy of having Jesus enter his house, but really he knew that a good Jew like Jesus might be forced to decline. He said, “I am not worthy to have you under my roof. Just give an order and my boy will get better. I am a man under authority myself and I have troops assigned to me. If I give one man the order, ‘Dismissed,’ off he goes. If I say to another, ‘Come here,’ he comes. If I tell my slave, ‘Do this,’ he does it. Jesus was amazed on hearing this and remarked, ‘I assure you, I have never found this much faith in Israel.’”
We learn that the serving boy was healed at once, but we see Jesus amazed at the faith of a Roman being better than that of his own disciples. And all the while the soldier left Jesus free to obey the customs about visiting gentiles without mentioning the prohibition. If the new Mass prayers have us quote this Roman, it is to have us express his faith in Jesus, really present in the Eucharist, available to us who admit we are vessels unworthy of him.
This is one of the many instances in the new liturgy’s wording where the change really is not about taking us back to the fifth century Latin, which standard was proposed to us by the Vatican but is not always self evident. If sinners like the heathen military man can rise to faith in Jesus, we can confess our sinfulness and be on the way to a healing of our own.
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