August 18, 2002 – 20^th Sunday “A”

Is 56,1.6-7 ; Rom 11,13-15.29-32 ; Mat 15,21-28

H O M I L Y

This Gospel reveals to us many things about the person of Jesus as well as about prayer. Our attitude towards prayer, indeed, usually reveals well enough the image that we have of God and of Christ.

If your god is the god of philosophers, an immutable god, who never changes, there is really no reason to pray him. If our Christ is a Christ who had a constant beatific vision right from the moment of his birth, and therefore could not grow in knowledge and awareness of his mission, a Gospel like the one of today will manifest to us a very disconcerting Christ, using strangely hard words just to test the pagan woman’s faith.

But if we accept what the Gospel tells us very clearly : that Christ grew in age, grace and wisdom, and therefore also in the understanding of his mission, then today's Gospel will take a very beautiful an encouraging meaning. It means, first, that the encounter with another person who confronted Him helped Jesus to discover a new dimension of his mission; and then that it is possible for us, poor human beings, to make God change his mind !

Up to that point in his life Jesus had preached only to the Jews and his message had encountered increasing difficulties. In the first section of this chapter 15 of Matthew, he had a strong confrontation with the Pharisees and the Scribes of Jerusalem on the meaning of Tradition, and he had decided to leave the land of the Jews to go to the region of Tyr and Sidon. When the pagan woman asked him to cure her daughter he refused; and when she insisted, he told her very clearly that, as a prophet, he had been sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, and not to the nations. He used an image: the image of a family where the food is served to the children at table and not to the puppies running around. There was there a little opening, which the woman seized cunningly, putting so to say her feet in the opening of the door : the little dogs, the puppies, are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from the table, and therefore they are also somewhat part of the family... Confronted with such a faith Jesus realized that she, and all those who have such a faith, are also of the household of God, and therefore He was sent to them also. And therefore he cured her daughter.

All the great spiritual figures of the Bible are people filled with desires and expectations, and expressing these to God with an energy, even a violence at times, that almost leaves us embarrassed. It is the prayer of lovers who love enough to express their desires, without attempting to manipulate the loved one, but hoping that his own desires may change and coincide with theirs. And this is a path of spiritual growth, because this is an opportunity for encounter with God, even if that encounter takes at time the form of a confrontation

It is something like it is with a child. A normal child expresses his desires very loudly and without nuances. And by expressing them he is confronted with the reality of the world out there, and he has the opportunity to grow through the ensuing conflicts. A child who does not express his desires may appear very nice, but he does not grow.

In daring to express her desires and her needs to Jesus the woman was not afraid to be confronted with a negative answer. She took the risk. In that confrontation what was changed was first of all her relationship with Jesus. And the beautiful thing is that non only the relationship was changed but the two persons involved in it, she and Jesus. Jesus both gave and received.

At her example, let us not hesitate to express boldly to the Lord all our needs and desires, knowing that in that encounter with God, our desires will perhaps not be answered exactly as we want, but that our relationship with God will be changed. And this is the ultimate goal of prayer.