SUNDAY 17 AUGUST 2014
TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Faith makes us light, enabling us to escape our own gravity,
which drags us down. The terrible trial of a chronically ill child
could have wrecked the Canaanite woman’s spirit, weighing her down with despondency and defeat. But faith lifts her from the heaviness of hopelessness and carries her to the “holy mountain” who is Christ.
– Pope Benedict XVI.
Love is the greatest power in the world. To be possessed with love is to be filled with a power, which will not be denied. It’s amazing what people can do, and will do, when they are motivated by love.
We see a wonderful example of this in today’s Gospel story. There we see the unshakeable determination of a mother, a Canaanite, who is a pagan, who asks Jesus to free her daughter from the devil. She is a desperate mother; a mother who is willing to do anything for her child’s wellbeing. She just refused to be put off or to give up.
Jesus explains that he came, first of all, for the sheep of the house of Israel and he does so even with harsh words: let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs. The harsh words from Jesus do not stop her in making her request. She was not ashamed to beg the Lord and because of her faith Jesus performed a miracle for her.
How delighted she must have been when Jesus finally answered her prayer. It meant that all her trouble, all her begging, all her embarrassment, had not been in vain. She is an example to us of perseverance, courage and love. But she is also an example of faith. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’
She is a model of what could be called tough faith. She risked making a bad impression, but she insisted, and from paganism and idolatry found health for her daughter and she found the living God. This is the journey of a person of good will who seeks God and finds him. The Lord blesses her.
How many people take this path and the Lord waits for them! But it is the same Holy Spirit that brings them forward to make this journey. Every day in the Church of God there are people who are making this journey, silently, yet consciously seeking the Lord, because they allow themselves to be carried forward by the Holy Spirit.
Let us take the path of the Canaanite woman, of that pagan woman, welcoming the Word of God, which has been planted in us and that will lead us to salvation. May the powerful Word of God keep us on this path and not allow us to be led into corruption or idolatry. Let us refuse to be prophets of doom,but rather become heralds of Good News. Faith, which is a gift from God, is born out of an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ and from there it should lead us to a life of witness. Faith doesn’t always make things easy. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be the case. It’s because we have faith that we refuse to give up.