"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon."
But he did not say a word in answer to her.
There are times when we pray and it seems that we do not hear a word in reply. Do we persist? It would, after all, have been easy for this woman to give up immediately. It was obvious that she had been heard. What could this lack of response mean but refusal? And yet it was not a refusal. That fact, that apparent hesitation is not refusal, was clear to her, but is often less so to us.
His disciples came and asked him,
"Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us."
She was so insistent that others found her annoying. And yet this was not the prayer of the pagans who thought they would be heard because of their many words (see Matthew 6:7). It was rather the prayer of persistence, similar the parable of the widow and the unjust judge (see Luke 18:1-8).
He said in reply,
"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
This, surely, was a refusal. Or was it? Again here it would have been easy for the woman to assume that Jesus meant that since he had been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that his mission was specifically not to her, that he therefore had no time or interest in helping. But again, he didn't say so specifically. And so she persisted.
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, "Lord, help me."
Look at the confidence of this woman in the face of all of the apparent refusals she had heard! She sensed that if she simply made her need sufficiently apparent then Jesus would have no choice but to show compassion. At no time did her heart harden. She did not say, 'Well I never!' and begin to walk away as most of us certainly would have.
He said in reply,
"It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs."
Had the woman not had deep humility this response from Jesus certainly would have been the dealbreaker that finally infuriated her caused her to leave. But she was even willing to see herself within the context of this comparison and yet find a way that the generous mercy of God might- no, must, still avail for her.
She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters."
She reasoned that God was so generous that anything that he did not refuse would eventually be granted. She intuited that even if the mission of Jesus was to the lost sheep of Israel he still had enough excess that through Israel all of the nations would be blessed. She saw that he was so rich and mercy that the children at the table need not be deprived at all in order to feed the puppies. But all of this was believed over and against appearances to the contrary. She had to persist in faith in order to receive that for which she longed.
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
"O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish."
And her daughter was healed from that hour.
The Canaanite woman's faith was strong in the face of appearances to the contrary. This contrasts well with the grumbling Israelites in the first reading, who allowed appearances to convince them that their circumstances were hopeless. This hopelessness implied that even God, the God of miracles and mighty deeds who had led and delivered them thus far, was somehow now unable to help them.
"We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us."
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel
about the land they had scouted
We sometimes see circumstances and appearances and spread discouraging (or bad, or evil) reports among our brothers and sisters. This we should not do, lest or lack of faith make our words take on the character of prophecy, as happened for those about whom we read.
I will do to you just what I have heard you say.
Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall.
Rather than giving an evil report let us learn from those who have demonstrated great faith. We can persist like the Canaanite woman no matter what initial disappointment we encounter. We can be courageous like Caleb no matter how insurmountable the odds that are stacked against us seem to be.
Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,
"We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so."
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