You are God, and I am not.

The readings for today call to mind one of my least favorite prayers. I know that it’s one of the best prayers for me, and is one of the easiest to say, but it’s incredibly difficult to believe.

“You are God, and I am not.”

Simple and unadulterated Humility.

It’s in the Gospel for today that the Church gets that famous line that we, and Catholics for nearly 2000 years have prayed before receiving Holy Communion: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”

This is one of the most humble prayers in all of Christianity and there’s no question as to why we hold it in such high esteem... but we often cut the response of the Centurion short, and if you’re like me, the rest of the quote and it’s context gets a bit lost. “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.”

The fact that Jesus was impressed by this makes a lot of sense. The Centurion basically said “Jesus, I get how this whole authority thing works. I’m put in charge of 100 soldiers. I’m looked to as the authority. I command others in nearly every moment of every day. Every other moment, I’m being commanded by another, because I know that I’m not at the top of the chain of command. But I don't have the authority here. And I know that my superiors don’t have the authority here either. You are God, and I am not."

The cynic within me counters this part of the Gospel by saying that the Centurion said that only to get what he wanted out of Jesus. The part of me that doesn’t like to be called to conversion cries out that this part of the Gospel doesn’t apply to me because of my made up self-imposed special circumstances. My unredeemed humanity rolls its eyes and asks the two most basic questions of philosophy which our students know all too well: “So what?" and "Who cares?”. But my heart... my heart knows that these responses of Pride that well up whenever I read this passage are proof that I’m nowhere near perfect, and that in fact, I have a long way to go.

So as we begin this Advent, let us ask God to give us the spirit of the Holy Centurion. May the Centurion be our model as we exercise whatever limited authority that we have been given. But most importantly, may this season of Advent infuse us with the Queen of the Virtues, Humility, so that we may in full Faith kneel and lean over the manger on Christmas morning, look into the eyes of a newborn, and whisper in awe “You are God, and I am not.”

Author: Ryan Caesar, nSJ

Ryan finishes his novice experiment at Jesuit Dallas this week.