Responsorial Psalm: 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
Reading II: Romans 11:13-15, 29-32
Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28
Notice that the woman in the Gospel Reading was a foreigner, a gentile, a person from outside the Jewish community. She was thereby deemed unworthy to obtain her request.
When she first makes her request, Jesus does not answer, but after she comes to him once, twice, and a third time, he gives her what she so ardently desires.
Perhaps by this he is teaching us all that withholding the gift was not not to drive her away, but to make that woman’s patience an example for all of us.
Perhaps by this he is teaching us all that withholding the gift was not not to drive her away, but to make that woman’s patience an example for all of us.
(John Chrysostom - Homily on Phil 1:18, 12-13: Bareille 5,495-496))
Jesus’ treatment of her elicits from her one of the most pert responses to Jesus from anyone anywhere: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs of the children’s bread,” she says. And Jesus loves her for that pertness and the persistence behind it. “Great is your faith!” he says to her in praise. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . she has the one thing that really does matter: she won’t let go of Jesus.
I love that the woman proves she can give as good as she gets. She is equal to the game of challenge and riposte. And that tenacity, quick-wittedness, and resilience serve her well. I get the feeling that she is not only baring her soul to Jesus, she is reaching for him with everything that God gave her. With great respect . . . with complete faith . . . and with no fear of her own possible embarrassment or ridicule, she pleads with Jesus for her daughter.
She is the only person in the Gospels who proves to be a good match for Jesus’ wit.
(Soutenus mixed w/ John J. Pilch’s assertion and commentary about how “she is the only person in the Gospels who proves to be a good match for Jesus’ wit.”)
By perseverance she became worthy; for Christ not only admitted her to the same noble rank as the children, but he also sent her away with high praise, saying: “Woman, you have great faith. Let it be as you desire.”
Now when Christ says: “You have great faith,” we need seek no further proof of the woman’s greatness of soul.
We see that an unworthy woman became worthy by perseverance.
It is the heart, the plea, the persistent hope. “Woman, you have great faith. Your wish will come to pass.” And her daughter is healed. (John Kavanaugh, SJ)
NOTE: She pleads for her daughter with complete faith and her daughter is set free from the demon. Remember this parents. Do not despair. Pray and trust. (Soutenus)
The Canaanite woman embodies the constant and universal quality that every human heart—Jew or Gentile, woman or man, slave or free—possesses. It was her and our own willingness to call out in faith. This power, slumbering in us all from the moment of our beginnings in our mothers’ wombs, whether ever actualized or not, is what each of us uniquely possesses . . . and yet what each of us has in common with each other.
(John Kavanaugh, SJ)
Human persons are endowed with the capacity to take possession of their lives and offer their lives in faith. This is what makes every man and woman wholly equal before the world and God. (John Kavanaugh, SJ)
Yet the universal blessing of our humanity is found only in individuals. Each of us must act out the drama of a single life alone. There is no understudy, no replacement in these matters. Our common gift is displayed in singular and particular beauty. Thus, the paradox of the one and the many . . . . is that the very gift that makes us all most alike makes each of us altogether unique. (John Kavanaugh, SJ)
In summary . . . . . . this of the Gospel reading again . . . .. The Canaanite woman in the gospel refuses to be rebuffed even by the exclusionary and harsh words of Jesus. Nothing gets in the way of her seeking healing for her daughter “tormented by a demon. The woman “keeps calling out” to Jesus because she wants him to remove the demon—to remove the evil that separates. Her great faith moves Jesus to grant her request. (LL:SC&C*)
Faith, by nature, is persistent.
Persistence, by nature, is single-minded.
Single-mindedness, by nature, achieves the end it seeks. (LL:SC&C*)
Like the woman in the gospel seeking healing for her daughter, our faith must be great enough to overcome barriers, must focus persistently on Jesus, and must bear the fruit of salvation and healing for others. (LL:SC&C*)
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LL:SC&C* =
for Sundays and Solemnities Year C - 2016.
Joyce Ann Zimmerman, CPPS;
Kathleen Harmon, SND de N;
and John W. Tonkin
More about John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (c.347-407) was bom at Antioch and studied under Diodore of Tarsus, the leader of the Antiochene school of theology. After a period of great austerity as a hermit, he returned to Antioch where he was ordained deacon in 381 and priest in 386. From 386 to 397 it was his duty to preach in the principal church of the city, and his best homilies, which earned him the title “Chrysostomos” or “the golden-mouthed,” were preached at this time. In 397 Chrysostom became patriarch of Constantinople, where his efforts to reform the court, clergy, and people led to his exile in 404 and finally to his death from the hardships imposed on him. Chrysostom stressed the divinity of Christ against the Arians and his full humanity against the Apollinarians, but he had no speculative bent. He was above all a pastor of souls, and was one of the most attractive personalities of the early Church.
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Dear Lord,
Give us faith like this single-minded woman.
Make us stubborn, fearless, bold, creative,
Whatever it takes.
Let us hear, “O, great is your faith.
Let it be done for you as you wish.
Amen
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Addendum:
One of the desert fathers, has a very interesting comment about this Gospel lesson. Abba Poemen reminds us that such unwanted nuisances such as the Canaanite woman are actually our brothers and sisters who we are commanded to care for. The Canaanites were no friends of the Jews and often were hostile to them. The Jews forbade intermarriage with the Canaanites. Whatever the Canaanites represented, even as a religious threat to each Israelite, the Lord Jesus responds favorably to her, seeing in her something the Twelve Disciples cannot see.
“Abba Poeman said: ‘We are in such trouble because we are not taking care of our brother who the Scripture stipulated we are to take in. Or do we not see the Canaanite woman who followed the Savior, crying and beseeching for her daughter to be healed—and that the Savior looked with favor on her and healed [her daughter]?’”1
Today, many refugees are very much like the Canaanite woman to us. But it is not only them, for many of us have a distrust and dislike for any migrants, any poor, any people of different culture or color. We want them to go away, or maybe we, like the apostles, hope God will make them go away. But He might, instead, mercifully answer their prayers. And He might expect us, His servants, to do the same.
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