Vigils Reading

THE FAITH

OF THE GENTILES

From a sermon by John of Ford

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The way the dawn rises seems a very apt symbol of the speed, eagerness

and greatness of the faith of the Gentiles in Jesus Christ. It awoke from a sleep

whose heaviness had been so long and so profound, and at the very first light of

the Lord’s birth, it sped towards him, like ‘the rising dawn’, It broke free from

the darkness of such a great want of faith to forestall, with eager devotion, the

Sun of justice. I say “forestall’ because it did not wait for the Wisdom of God to

come and discuss with it the sublimities he had seen and heard when he spoke at

home with this Father… [Nor did it] await his dazzling display of miracles and

virtues and his giving commands to sickness and health, to wind and sea, to

every angelic and human spirit, even to the demons themselves.

On the contrary, [this gentile faith] would not allow even the time of his

infancy to escape it, but in the lowly beginnings of that infancy, it sought out and

recognized its creator. And so the faith of the gentile nations was swift in its

speed, eager in its rejoicing, wise in its search, resolute in its finding, faithful in

its adoration, generous in its gift of itself…

Think of the faith of the centurion, at which scripture tells us that Jesus

marveled. In fact, he went so far as to say that he had not found faith as great in

Israel. That he was here commending the faith of the gentiles is clear enough

from what he said to those who were following him. ‘I tell you most solemnly,

that many will come from the east and from the west, and sit down with

Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; but the children of the kingdom will be cast out

into the exterior darkness .̓

Then we have the Canaanite woman who interceded for her daughter, and

when she was refused, persisted, and by the great noise she made, battered at

the silence of Jesus. When he turned away from her, she followed him without

apology; she humbly adored him when he rejected her; she listened patiently to

his reproaches, and so, in the end, she brought forth ‘honey from the rock, and

oil from the flinty stone I repeat, in the person of this woman, the church of the .̓

gentiles deserved to hear the Lord Jesus say: ‘O woman, great is your faith!’

Then there was the woman of Samaria, who found the God of Jacob

beside Jacob’s well, and in place of the water that does not quench our thirst,

drew for herself ‘the fount of living water’, so as never to know thirst again. She

too is a figure of the faith of the gentiles, and she was commended by the very

author of faith when he said to the disciples who were asking him to eat, ‘I have

food to eat that you know nothing about He added, ‘Lift up your eyes and see .̓

the fields, that they are white for the harvest Here he was making unmistakable .̓

reference to the ripeness and zealous eagerness of the gentile faith, which he

considered food that he hungered after and would eat in the near future…

And there was the centurion, too, when Jesus was suffering and the faith

of the disciples was exceedingly disturbed. He reached the full stature of a

strong faith, and the crucified Jesus, whom others saw and fell away,

scandalized, drew him forward in praise.