Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28
At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold,
a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord,
Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But Jesus did not say a
word in answer to her. Jesus’ disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for
she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying,
“Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the
children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs
eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to
her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you
wish.” And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
How do we define our faith in Jesus? It’s when we don’t give up on what
we want from Jesus. We continuously badger Him until He gives in to our prayer
for Him.
The Canaanite woman had this kind of faith, she never gave up on her
prayer request for Jesus to heal her daughter tormented by a demon. There were
many obstacles stacked against her, foremost of this was her being not a Jew
but it did not matter to her. She persisted and she even argued with Jesus
until she passed Jesus’ examination of her faith. After which her daughter was
healed by Jesus.
This gospel relates with our own journey of faith with Jesus also. Anyone
of us could be that Canaanite woman who badgered Jesus no end until she got the
healing that she wants for her daughter.
However, unlike the woman from Canaan who persisted until the very end we may not have the will to badger Jesus. We may have quit already and said to ourselves, “I give up on my prayer for Jesus because He seems to be deaf.” What we do not know is the delay is just part of the testing of our faith.
Every trial that we go through is our own test of faith. For example this
covid-19 pandemic that is making life so difficult for us this is just a test
of faith for us. Let us therefore not give up and let us continue to pray to
the Lord for our safety for we will overcome this eventually with the help of
the Lord. - Marino J. Dasmarinas
No comments:
Post a Comment