Monday of the 1st week of Advent
1 December 2025
Homily
From today onwards, the Gospel readings for Mass will present us with a series of healings performed by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. In the following two chapters, he performs a dozen miracles.
But be careful; it should be noted that where we easily speak of miracles, the Gospel simply speaks of ‘healing’. In our modern conception, a miracle is something that cannot be explained in the context of what we understand to be the laws of nature. However, this conception of miracles is modern and completely foreign to the men and women of the Bible. For the people of the Bible, there are no laws of nature. Nature is entirely subject to the will and omnipotence of God, who acts in it as he sees fit and when he wants. For the people of the Bible, there are no miracles; there are simply ‘mirabilia Dei’, ‘wonders of God’, that is, more striking actions in which God manifests his omnipotence. And all the wonderful actions performed by Jesus are not primarily manifestations of omnipotence, but rather manifestations of God's merciful love for men, especially the little ones, the suffering, the victims of the forces of evil.
The first condition – and, ultimately, the only condition for being granted such a manifestation of God's love – is faith. It is this faith that is manifested by the centurion of the Roman army in the healing recounted in the text we have just read. For this officer of the Roman army, Jesus does not need to come and perform any gestures or rituals on his child to heal him. He only had to want the child to be healed. He therefore recognized Jesus' absolute and divine authority over the entire universe. And Jesus pointed out that he had not found such faith in Israel. He did not ask this foreigner to convert to Judaism; he did not ask him to give up everything and follow him. He simply told him to go home. And he tells him that his faith will be effective: ‘Let it be done for you according to your faith.’ And his son is healed at that very moment.
During this Eucharist, let us pray especially for all those we know who are affected by suffering and illness, that Jesus, in one way or another, may bear these sufferings and illnesses with them.
Armand Veilleux