On this fourth weekend after Pentecost, our readings are taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans and St. Matthew’s Gospel. They both seem to center on the nature of faith and the impact that faith can have on our lives.

Paul suggests that the “way of Jesus” is a way that makes us “slaves of God” and that the benefit of this is “sanctification” as you “tend toward eternal life.

Paul then concludes his thoughts by expressing his belief that when a person attempts to live as Jesus lived, God’s response is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. To live like Jesus requires that we believe He is God’s revelation to us on how we should live if we want to experience eternal life.

We must remember that a person can only experience what he/she believes to be true. If a person doesn’t believe there is such a thing as “eternal life”, then this means nothing.

The Gospel relates the story of the cure of a centurion’s servant. Although he was a Roman soldier – someone hated by most people in the society in which Jesus lived – he had such love for his serving boy that he dared to approach Jesus for the favor of a cure. He expressed great faith in the power of Jesus by first saying that he was “not worthy” to have Jesus under his roof and that he believed that all Jesus had to do was “just give an order” and that the boy would be healed.

What absolute faith in the power of Jesus. In fact Jesus recognizes the centurion’s faith and says: “I assure you, I have never found this much faith in Israel.” Jesus then said: “it shall be done because you trusted”. This raises the question of our own trust in God.

We are called to place our trust in Jesus, Who is God incarnate. To trust in Him means that we truly believe that His response to our prayers will always be what is best for us. This may mean, however, that we may not receive exactly what we seek. True trust in God is the belief that whatever we receive, even after we ask for it, is truly in our best interest.

This, I know, can be difficult for us humans to accept. We always believe that we know what is best for us, even though that may not be true in the long run. It is a matter of believing that God allows life to present exactly what we need to grow in our firm belief in His unconditional love. Our Eternal Father truly only wants what is best for us.         Do you believe this!