In today's readings, we see how the Lord is patient with us when it takes us a while to trust in his mercy. But he also tries to bring the best out of us. In today's first reading from the Book of Kings, we see Solomon's steady decline into idolatry. We are told that "when Solomon was old, his wives had turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the Lord his God, as the heart of his father David had been" (1 Kings 11:4).
And so the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is what you want, and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I enjoined on you, I will deprive you of the kingdom and give it to your servant. I will not do this during your lifetime; however, for the sake of your father David it is your son whom I will deprive. Nor will I take away the whole kingdom; I will leave your son one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and of Jerusalem, which I have chosen” (1 Kings 11:11–13).
And so our Lord doesn't force himself upon anyone, but neither will he just stand idly by and be mocked as if he doesn't exist after, especially after everything that he's done for us.
And so in the Gospel today, we have the story of the Syrophoenician woman, taken from the Gospel according to Saint Mark (Mark 7:24–30). And it's a very abbreviated version of what we find in Saint Matthew's Gospel concerning the same event (Matthew 15:21–28).
Mark is very direct and to the point, and he speaks about this woman who was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, who begged the Lord to drive out a demon from her daughter. And Jesus immediately says to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27).
So here Mark condenses everything into one sentence. Yet in the Gospel of Matthew, we know that there is a progression. We know that, first of all, when the Syrophoenician woman goes up to Jesus and cries out after him, he basically does not respond (cf. Matthew 15:23). He makes as if he is ignoring her, and so she continues to beg him, to follow him, to raise her voice, to plead with him. And at the same time, our Lord continues to ignore her. And yet the apostles say to Jesus, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us” (Matthew 15:23).
And so we have to understand that there is a progression in the life of this woman and the way she is reacting to our Lord's words. He's not really ignoring her, but what he knows she will do is she will continue to persevere. And so this is the Lord bringing out the best in her.
And then when he says to her, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26), that's when she comes out with the ultimate expression of her faith, because she humbles herself and she says, “Yes, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps” (Mark 7:28). And that's when he said to her, “For saying this, you may go; the demon has gone out of your daughter” (Mark 7:29).
We can almost imagine our Lord's joy at the length this woman would go out of love for her daughter, but the great faith she had in Jesus. She didn't just turn around and say, oh, some prophet that is. He rejected me. He ignored me. He insulted me, called me a dog. No, she abases herself. She humbles herself before him. And that's when the Lord chooses to reward her faith.
My brothers and sisters, how are we approaching the Lord? Are we like a Solomon who is good with God in as much as everything is going well, and then we'll switch him up according to the whims of those around us? Are we like this woman who perseveres out of love, but who chooses to humble herself in approaching the Lord?
So, my brothers and sisters, this is why, at the beginning of every Mass, the priest will ask us to acknowledge our sins so that we may prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries. Because we're about to enter into God's presence, the true God, the only God. For there can only be one God, nobody higher than him. Because when there was nothing in existence, materially speaking, there was only God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How can we just exchange him with all of these false gods in our lives, these material things that pass away and that are fading away with the universe? As Saint Peter describes in his letters, this universe itself is fading away (cf. 2 Peter 3:10).
My brothers and sisters, let us look to heaven. “Seek first the kingdom of God, and then everything else will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). And this is what this woman, this courageous, brave, and humble woman did out of love for her daughter, but in humble submission to the Lord.
Let us do likewise, and may God bless you all in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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