August 16th 2020. The Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
GOSPEL: Matthew 15, 21-28
Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio
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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel
GOSPEL: Matthew 15, 21-28
Jesus left Gennesaret and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Then out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, ‘Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.’ But he answered her not a word. And his disciples went and pleaded with him. ‘Give her what she wants,’ they said ‘because she is shouting after us.’ He said in reply, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel’. But the woman had come up and was kneeling at his feet. ‘Lord,’ she said ‘help me.’ He replied, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs’. She retorted, ‘Ah yes, sir; but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table’. Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’ And from that moment her daughter was well again.
The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
Summary . . . Sunday’s reading has the most startling reply from Jesus recorded in the Gospels: “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. To understand this reply to the Canaanite woman, it is essential that we recognize that no-one of us can become an authentic Christian until we recognize our misery, our infidelity, our estrangement from God. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the key moment was when the son finally recognized that he was living like an animal and was unworthy to be called a son of his father. The greatness of the Canaanite woman consists in the fact that she acknowledged that she was estranged from God and undeserving of his grace, yet she showed by her perseverance that she submitted to his help anyway. All of us have fallen far short of the beautiful nature that God has destined for us. Each one of us needs to periodically acknowledge our poverty and misery before the Lord. We need to admit that we are, effectively, “dogs” in this sense. God cannot pour his gifts into hearts that are full of themselves, but into hearts that are poor and humble. It is from this reduction to nothing that greatness begins. We must give God the right to say “no” to us. It is when we metabolize these “rejections” that we are given the opportunities to grow. God is not an automatic distributor of graces who says “yes” to everything we request. He nurtures us, corrects us, prompts us to grow. A proper relationship with him demands that our hearts be filled with the truth of that relationship, and this involves acknowledging our misery and the fact that we deserve nothing. This Sunday we have a splendid opportunity for recalling that, undeserving as we are, we have been welcomed by the Lord and made children by his grace.
In Sunday’s Gospel, we hear the most startling reply from Jesus recorded in the Gospels
The Gospel for Sunday is quite startling. When a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal his daughter, Jesus refuses to answer her. Even the disciples seem to have more compassion than Jesus, and they implore Jesus to grant her request. But his reply is even more shocking: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. The expression Jesus uses – “dogs” – is particularly disparaging. By the end of this passage, of course, Jesus will have responded well to the woman and even praised her in the highest terms. But for the moment we must seek to understand his apparently negative approach.
It is not possible to become an authentic Christian without recognizing, our misery, our poverty, our distance from God and our need of his help
In order to be healed of a dependency or addiction, it is always necessary that we admit our poverty, our misery and need for help. The early Church was surrounded by the Hellenistic, Roman and Canaanite cultures. It was not possible to become Christian without recognizing the elements of these cultures that were alien to the Christian way of life. In general, before any of us can become an authentic Christian, we have to acknowledge that, at present, we are very distant to God. In the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s Gospel, the critical moment is when the son realizes that he has been reduced to an animal like state, unworthy to be called a son of his father. In the early Church, those converts that came from Hellenistic and Canaanite backgrounds would have had to recognize how far their culture was from the Lord. Even today, the expression “pagan dogs” is used in Islam and some other cultures. And it is necessary for us to recognize ourselves as “dogs” in the sense of being far from God, far from the complete form of humanity according to the will of God.
The greatness of this woman consists in her awareness of her poverty, her humility and her acknowledgement that she does not deserve anything.
This Canaanite woman acknowledges that she is asking for a “crumb” that she does not deserve. When she demonstrates this awareness of her own poverty and her dependence on the Lord, Jesus replies by saying, “Great is your faith. May your wish be granted”. It is important for all of us at times during life to reach this level of acknowledging our poverty, our estrangement from God, our identity as “dogs” in comparison to the beautiful human nature that God had destined for us. Faith is not something that God can pour into a heart that is full of itself and its own abilities, but into a heart that is poor. As the psalm says, “A humble and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise” (Psalm 51,17). The heart of this woman is great because it takes littleness as its starting point. She is humble enough to ask for help, having no pretensions of her own. Certainly, she asks with perseverance, but not presuming to have a right in herself of a response.
God is not an automatic distributor of graces who responds to all of our requests. Instead he is a Father who wishes to help us grow. When we relate to him as children, it is essential we have truth in our hearts regarding our own poverty, our own littleness, the fact that we deserve nothing. The Lord will welcome us as we are and make us his children by grace, but we for our part must recognize our need for him and our estrangement from him,
This Gospel is a reminder to all of us that we should not forget the day in which we were “dogs”. For St Peter, it would always have been important not to forget the day in which he betrayed the Lord, and for Paul to recall the violence he showed against the Church. It is from this annihilation, this reduction to nothing, that greatness begins. The Canaanite woman accepts this “rejection” by God and in return she receives the greatest praise from the Lord. We must give God the right to say “no” to us, and we must welcome and metabolize his “rejections”. God is not an automatic distributor of graces who responds to all of our requests. Instead he is a Father who seeks to make us grow. He nurtures us, educates us, corrects us and demands that we relate to him according to the truth. When we invoke God and ask for his help, it is important that we have the truth in our hearts regarding our own poverty. This Gospel is a splendid occasion for recognizing that we are the poor and miserable ones who have been welcomed to the table by God. Similarly, it is a motive for us to welcome others as the Lord has welcomed us. The beginning of every Mass, in fact has the words, “In order to celebrate the sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our unworthiness, our infidelities, our sins”. We are all estranged from God, but we have been welcomed by him and made children by grace.
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