8/20/2023 - 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

A BRIEF COURSE TO GET A MIRACLE
The theme of the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time is that God wants everyone to be saved. The Israelites find out in the first reading that non-Jews, who keep the laws of the Lord, worship the same God. The second reading features Paul's description of his work among non-Jews. And in the Gospel, Jesus cures the Canaanite woman's daughter.

The passage from Matthew 15:21–28 is the Gospel for today. Matthew, a tax collector before he was called by Jesus, is the narrator of this wonderful story. He himself was a scourge on Jewish society, having been cast out as a tax collector. Neither the synagogue nor the temple would let him in. The Temple refused to take his offerings. He is relating a tale about a Canaanite woman who was an outcast. Since Joshua's battle at Jerico, the Canaanites have been Israel's enemies. Both groups were united in their mutual hatred.

There are two major takeaways from this. The first is that it's important to keep praying for what we want. Even though the most important aspects of Christian prayer are adoration and thanksgiving, petitions play a significant role in our daily prayers. There are many material and spiritual necessities that we cannot meet on our own. If we come to Christ with our requests, he promises to provide.

Do our prayers reflect the kind of intensity and persistence that would indicate "great faith?" That faith is the evidence Christ requires before he can grant our petitions. The Canaanite woman whose story we just heard exemplifies such unwavering confidence in Christ's power and goodness. She pleads, "Lord, have mercy on me". Afar off, she could be heard pleading, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!" This is a regular part of the Mass. Kyrie Eleison, have mercy on me! She persisted in her pleading, and even after He seemingly rejected her, she did not lose faith in Him. She rebutted His reason for refusal by stating that granting her petition would not detract from His primary task, which was to carry out His father's mission to His chosen people. This was the ultimate demonstration of faith He could accept. He complied with her demand.

This pagan mother is an example to follow. She was willing to go through anything for her sick child she loved immensely. Do we have the same kind of unwavering faith in Christ when we come to him in times of need? Often we realize that the results we prayed for are not seen. As Christians, we recognize that the things we pray for may not always lead to our ultimate good or the good of the person for whom we pray. In that case, our merciful God will not bestow upon us what would be to our eternal detriment. But if we keep praying and trust that God hears us, we will always receive an answer that is even better than what we prayed for. We will not know how God responded to our sincere and persistent prayers until we reach heaven, and heaven is why we live.

The second lesson is that Jesus tries to teach his followers they shouldn't just ignore and push people away because they aren't like them or share their faith. This Canaanite woman abandons her paganism to put her faith in Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, in the hopes that he will perform a miracle to save her daughter's life. Jesus' followers were taken aback when the woman declared Jesus to be the "Son of David" a messianic title very dear to the Jews. This is a story of miraculous healing, but it is also a call to the early Christians to overcome their traditional prejudices and barriers. There is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles when it comes to salvation. In the unnamed mother, the persistent woman of prayer, we have a new clarity that there are no bounds to the mission of the Lord and we the Church must embrace it.  Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.