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,
but the children of the Kingdom
will be driven out into the outer darkness,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
And Jesus said to the centurion,
“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”
And at that very hour his servant was healed.

Jesus entered the house of Peter,
and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand, the fever left her,
and she rose and waited on him.

When it was evening, they brought him many
who were possessed by demons,
and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick,
to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet:

He took away our infirmities
and bore our diseases.

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.”

This statement is said by the congregation during the consecration prayers, just moments before we take eucharist. It is important during this proclamation that we remember the centurion, he was well respected and admired among his people and on a material level he had great authority, and there are few people in this world, people of great stature and renown, that he could could welcome under his roof, but recognizing who jesus was and the spiritual greatness of Jesus, he recognized that he is as lowly as the lowest and does not warrant the reception of the lord, “under his roof”. We should not ever forget the scene, or the fact that we are just as lowly as this centurion, and that we even need his grace and mercy, to just be in his pressence. Let us never forget, who He is, and who we are, and when we encounter the lord in the eucharist, how humbling that is for the lord , and to not ever lose track of the how humbling it shoud be for us as well.

Oh, lord, help me today to be as humble as the centurion, but give me the courage to ask for your grace as well.