"The royal official said to him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.' Jesus said to him, 'You may go; your son will live.' The man believed what Jesus said to him and left." - John 4:49-50
When Jesus tells the royal official in today's Gospel: "You may go; your son will live," we read that the man believed what Jesus said and left. The importance of faith comes as no surprise to us, but faith in the Christian sense means more than believing in an unproven idea. It means trust in a person. This official didn't just believe in the idea of the messiah. He trusted Christ.
There is a saying that sometimes the longest distance is that span which stretches from the head to the heart. Perhaps that's because we've gotten the order wrong. We don't learn more about things in order to love them. Rather, it is because we love them that we yearn to learn more. The baseball fan doesn't become a fan by memorizing the stats of the players. It is his already-present love of the sport that drives him to follow the stats. Simply asserting "God exists" can seem heroic in our post-Christian world, but we are called not just to believe that God is, but to believe in Him—to love and to trust in Him.
Do we have faith like that royal official—faith which flows from the heart to the head?
Lord, inspire our hearts that our minds might seek You more ardently.
Reflection by:
Donald Amodeo
Did you know...
Donald Amodeo is a seminarian for the Diocese of St. Petersburg. Author of the afterlife adventure "Dead & Godless," Don is an avid reader and a fan of apologetics, coffee and cast-iron skillets. His home parish is St. Mary Catholic Church in Tampa.
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