Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Our reading is from the holy gospel according to Matthew.
At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon." But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her. Jesus' disciples came and asked him, "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us." He said in reply, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help me." He said in reply, "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters." Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.
The gospel of the Lord.
Our readings today tell us that God’s love and mercy is greater than anything we can imagine; and we are called by God to enter into and participate in God’s love and mercy. It is a lesson we find difficult to learn and Jesus, in his humanity as he carried out his mission of teaching and healing, also had to learn it.
At first reading, many of us are shocked by what seems to be Jesus’ initial callous treatment of the Canaanite woman who came asking for a cure for her daughter. At first he ignores her, then he rebuffs her request implying that she is worth no more than a dog. All this reflects the attitude of the Jews toward their pagan neighbors in Jesus’ time. But this was not God’s attitude, as we hear from the prophet Isaiah in the first reading.
The prophet envisions foreigners coming to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. As long as they love the Lord, keep the sabbath and hold to the covenant, their prayers will be heard, their sacrifices accepted and they will even minister in the temple, because God’s “house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
In closing the infancy narrative of his gospel, Luke tells us that “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.” We often forget that, in spite of being the Son of God, Jesus was a true human being and had to grow and learn. His encounter with the Canaanite woman was a growth experience.
When she first cried out to him, invoking his title as Messiah, he ignored her. As she kept crying out, his disciples asked him to please give her what she wanted, just to get rid of her. It was not Jesus’ way to simply make a miracle, it had to be within his preaching of the kingdom of God, so he explained to his disciples: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." At least that was his understanding up to that point.
Finally, the Canaanite woman, a foreigner, comes up to him, kneels before him and says: "Lord, help me." Then come the words that grate in our ears: "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." But the woman is not to be put off: "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters." to which Jesus replies: "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." In all the gospels, only two people got the better of Jesus in an argument, and both were women: Mary, his mother, at the wedding feast of Cana, and this Canaanite woman. And in both cases, it came after a profound expression of faith in Jesus. Jesus learned that the gift of faith was open to all, and so was the Kingdom of God.
Saint Paul would learn the same lesson. He became the apostle to the Gentiles after his message was rejected in the synagogues and could only conclude: God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.
Today we need to learn the same lesson. The demons of war, violence and corruption are forcing millions from their homes. They knock on the doors of other countries, where politicians and influencers try to give them horrible and prejudicial labels, so that we all might turn our backs on them. But that is not God’s way. God’s kingdom is open to all who seek it in faith and good will.
May God’s love and mercy reign in our heats, and may God bless you.
Fr. Karl E. Esker
Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help
Brooklyn, NY
POWERED BY BLUBRRY
