Worthiness. It’s often an issue, even if sometimes a bit overwrought. Over time, even among Christians, the issue has shifted from the default of not being worthy to the presumption of worthiness. What is lost in this shift is a sense of sin’s gravity. Its effects on one’s relationship with God, who alone is holy.
The Roman centurion’s response to Jesus’ declaration that He would follow him home to cure his servant are words with which we are very familiar: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”1 We say these words at every Mass after being told to “Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.”
It’s easy for our Mass responses to become rote, uttered thoughtlessly and without passion. This must be resisted mightily. After all, I am not worthy.
Left to my own merits, no matter how much I strive, I will never be worthy. While this is simply a recognition of reality, it should pain me, nonetheless. I want to be worthy or should at least want to desire to be worthy.
One’s motivation for wanting to be worthy can be a mixed bag. On the debit side of the ledger, it’s often the case that someone doesn’t like needing help to be deemed worthy. It isn’t enough to want to be holy. One’s desire to be holy must be a holy desire, that is, rightly motivated. Part of this holy desire means recognizing that I need God, that I need grace given in and through Christ by the power of the Spirit.
Our first reading from the Isaiah (who we hear a lot from over Advent) is from first Isaiah. Therefore, it was written before Israel’s exile. This oracle speaks of those who remain in Jerusalem during exile. Remember, it was the elites who were led away into captivity. The hoi polloi, or, in Hebrew, the anawim- the little ones, those of no account, who remained. These, pronounces the prophet, “Will be called holy.”2
It is the poor and the weak who know they need assistance who remain in the holy city. These least among us ask for help, sometimes beg for it, like the blind beggar Jesus encountered in Jericho about whom we heard a few Mondays ago. God delights in these humble souls.
After acknowledging our unworthiness, we implore the Lord to “only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” As often as we earnestly ask, the Lord says the healing word. When one is aware of serious sin, Christ beckons him to the confessional to say the healing word.
Lord longs to say, “I absolve you of your sins.” Sometimes, we forget the extent to which Jesus turned things upside down. It isn’t humility to insist that your sins are greater than God’s mercy. On the contrary, it is damnable pride. After all, didn’t God give His only Son to extend divine mercy to you? As Saint Paul insisted, “you have been purchased at a price.”3
Confession is not where you go to admit defeat. It is where you go to claim the victory Christ won for you over sin and death! Don’t let pride, one of the devil’s best tools, keep you from claiming your victory. Christ’s Easter victory is your victory. Without Easter, Christmas doesn’t matter.
1 Isaiah 4:3.↩
2 Matthew 8:8.↩
3 See 1 Corinthians 6:20.↩
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