TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

XX SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A: (Is 56:1,6-7; Rom 11:13-15, 29-32; Math 15:21-28)
Theme: My dear, great is your faith and let it be done as you wish

Reflection:

- Last Sunday we have reflected on the miraculous walk of Peter on the waters on the command of Jesus and though he has wavered looking around with fear of winds and drowning, at the end, with the prayer of trust “Lord, save me” he is been helped by Jesus with the words, ‘man of little faith, why did you doubt’.
- This Sunday we are provided with totally different scene: the woman of great faith who is a stranger and the woman who did not doubt in spite of Jesus’ provocation; instead, she kept saying time and again, “Lord, help me”; though there were discouraging words from Jesus she did not lose confidence and trust in him and at the end, Jesus helps her with the words, ‘woman great is your faith’.
- The Church, in this way, gives us the possibility to reflect on the different dispositions of the various people who come into contact with him: the peter and the disciple in the last week who had fear of seeing a ghost and finally recognizing him at the calming of the winds and waters of the sea; and, the Canaanite woman on the other hand who from the beginning till the end manifested the same trust and faith in him though being a woman stranger to the Hebrews; the Church asks us to question ourselves how we are in the confrontations with Jesus, in the prayer or in the asking of help: do we keep on asking till the end of receiving the favor with the persistence of the manifestation of the proper trust in the person who is to help us like that of the Canaanite woman or do we fall back from the request when we see the ‘waves of doubt’ either by the silence or of the discouraging words of the people around us or of the one who is to help us like that of Peter;
- Who are we today in front of Jesus? Is the biggest question to be asked; Are we Peter who was the man of little faith, or are we Canaanite who was the woman of great faith? We have to return home today with the clear answer and clear identification of ourselves with regard to the matters of faith and trust in Jesus and thus hearing him say to each one of us: ‘my dear one, great is your faith and let it be done as you have asked for’.


First Reading: God’s presence is the house of prayer for all

- The message of hope of Isaiah:
o Prophet Isaiah is a prophet of God’s providence and God’s hope for the people of Israel who are in the slavery of Babylon; they are in desperate situation and disguising condition of life. They lost all hope of returning to be God’s people and thus people of life.
o God never leaves anyone abandoned and never allows anyone of his chosen people to be left alone in the difficulty and in the slavery; this is the principal message of the prophet for the chosen people who are at present in the situation of shame and disguise.
- It passes from the chosen ones to all the peoples:
o The message of the prophets and especially, of the Isaiah today, is the message first to the people of Israel of whom God said ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’ and that is the ‘gracious condition’ of the chosen race. Therefore, the message first apply and imply to the people of Israel and we have to take it in the context of the prophecy than giving it immediately the universal significance: “Thus says the Lord: maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed” (v. 1) is the first lines of the prophecy of today which clearly indicates that it is directed first towards the people of Israel;
o Only then, it passes from/through them to others, whom they consider to be strangers just because they are not chosen by their God. But the ‘passing’ of the word of hope and salvation is sure and definitive: “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer” (vv.6-7). As the chosen ones are to practice the justice and to do what is right, so the foreigners who want to be joyful with the help of the Lord are to ‘join themselves to him’ and to ‘be his servants’.
o Therefore, the necessity of the disposition of the part of the faithful, be it the chosen one or be it the foreigner, is demanded; they have to be available for the ACT of the Lord, the act of his salvation and the act of his love for his people;
o In this way, God’s covenant and God’s salvation is extended to all the people passing through the ‘way of the Israel’. Therefore, the prophecy which was in the particular context becomes open to all who keep themselves available for it.
- The prophecy has two stages of fulfillment:
o One is Immediate: the prophecy made by God of the Old Testament is always has its immediate response; it happens in the context of near future; its effect is immediately seen in the life of the one who has received the prophecy: for example, today’s first reading speaks of the house of prayer on the holy mountain: it signifies the salvation of the people of Israel from the bondage and they would go to Jerusalem once again to worship him;
o The other is in the appointed time and thus in the long future with the fulfillment of the promise: here the prophecy would be fulfilled in the highest and perfect way the God has chosen to reveal and about the time and person he has promised to fulfill, and thus in his beloved son Jesus; it happens when the Word revealed manifests itself in the Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. He is the highest and perfect fulfillment of God’s revelation of the prophecies: for example, Jesus tells that the Kingdom of God is open to all and invites all the people, without any difference of any type, to embrace it and to be part of it;
o In this way, by the Act of Jesus the worship of God takes another dimension and another root; it is an invitation for all; the immediate effect of the prophecy is ‘return of the Israel from slavery to the worship of God in Jerusalem’ in the temple that God has appointed; the future effect of the prophecy is ‘the return of all the people of the world from the bondage of the sin and the evil to the acceptance and worship of God in the Kingdom of God’ with the spirit and the truth (John 20-24);


Second Reading:

- Paul and the salvation to the gentiles:
o As we know from his letters and from his own testimony, Paul is called to be the messenger of God’s project of salvation to the gentiles; accordingly he dedicates all his life and preaching; but he never excluded completely the Jews who are the first chosen people of God.
o As we see today’s second reading this is clear that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (v.29) and thus, the gift of life and call of salvation that is offered to the people of Israel are valid for all the time because God’s words and deeds are not take back; his promises are true and they take place in the appointed time and through the appointed person.
o Paul spends almost three continuous chapters in his letter to the Romans (chapters 9, 10 and 11) dedicating them all to the discourse of the project of God for his people Israel; he recalls the call of God for them in the ninth chapter speaking about the “election of Israel” and how they in return shown many a times their unbelief; and he talks about the salvific design of God which is extended to all because of their infidelity and disbelief in the tenth chapter and immediately, in the eleventh chapter he says that the rejection of Israel is not final and with the same mercy with which God has called even the gentiles into the salvation, he calls back also the people of Israel who have gone astray with their disobedience.
o Finally, the disobedience of the few becomes the door open for revelation of the mercy of God; in this way, God makes it possible for the grace to reach man even in the time of ‘disobedience of others’.


Gospel:

- The context of the gospel:
o Jesus after finishing the multiplication of the bread and the rebuking the little faith of Peter in the zone of the Jewish people, now he goes into the zone of the foreigners who do not belong to the people of God and more over, as considered in the given time, to the people abandoned and rejected by God;
o It is not surprising that all the people who will be coming into contact with him or whom he will meet in this area are strangers; no wonder in it because it is very normal to find out only strangers in the strange land;
o The zone that Jesus enter into is “the district of Tyre and Sidon” (v.21); and then there is a Canaanite woman who ‘on seeing Jesus’ immediately shouts for help “have mercy on me Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon” (v.22);
o The three strange response of Jesus:
 Silence (v.23): “But he did not answer her at all”.
 The priority of the chosen race to be manifested, an answer to his disciples (v.24): “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.
 Direct confrontation with the woman (v.26): “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
o The persistent prayer of the woman: repeated request with the hope and the insisting asking without losing heart with the ‘strange attitude’ of Jesus:
 Have mercy on me, Lord (v.22)
 Lord, help me (v.25)
 “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” (v.27)
o Final result is the ‘donation of the favor asked’:
 With the compliment for the perseverance of the prayer: “woman, great is your faith!” (v.28);
 With the completion of the request made: “Let it be done for you as you wish” (v.28).

- Revelation of its truth:
o The Initiative of Jesus:
 No one asked him to come to the strange land; Jesus is always aware of his mission of bring the salvation to all, not only to the chosen people of God, but to the whole humanity;
 It is he who makes the first step towards the ‘foreign land’ and to the ‘foreign people’ leaving his own sheep: “Jesus left that place (place of his people) and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon; therefore, the first step is always Jesus’.
 That’s is the reason why we should not be surprised to see a different attitude in the Jesus treatment of others and specially foreigners; His knows that he has to go to other sheep also as he says somewhere that he has other villages also to go and proclaim the kingdom of God;

o The strange attitude of Jesus:
 His attitude seems to be different only because of his silence; his preference for the lost sheep of the proper house and his provoking confrontation with the woman; but it is only an act of verification of the faith of the person who asks the favor.
 This kind of attitude we see many times: Jesus verifies the faith of people who come to him to ask for the help or to be with him or to follow him:
• Jesus’ long discourse with the Samaritan woman in which Jesus slowly and patiently brings out what is in her and finally reveals her the truth and thus leads her to the salvation/finding of the Messiah (John chapter four);
• Jesus’ triple question to Peter after the resurrection: “Peter, son of Simon, do you love me?” is not only because of the former’s betrayal of the latter three times but also for the verifying the disposition of him for the work of the Lord. Thus Jesus asking him again and again tests his consistency and firm faith that he has to expose and reveals the truth of ‘leading the flock’ and thus leads him to be the witness of salvation;
• In the same manner, even here, Jesus wants to verify how persistent she is in her request and how confidence she is in him that he would do something;
 It is not to frighten the people that he exposes this kind of attitude and to makes the strong and firm in the faith that they manifest;
 He already knows that ‘as the seed is so the fruit shall be’; and as the ‘seed of faith manifested’ is so the ‘fruit of the grace/favor shall be’ and consequently, he wonders and appreciates with great joy the unwavering faith and un-diminishing confident of the woman, though only a Canaanite, a stranger.
 What he wants is not who that person is, be it Jew or Gentile (as Paul puts it), but what he expects is “how the person puts out his disposition to the act of the Lord” which is an act of ‘total faith’ in him. The Canaanite woman expressed this kind of ‘verified and committed faith’ and she received a favor asked.

Conclusion:

- It’s meaning for us today:
o It is Jesus who, fulfilling God’s will of salvation for all, makes the first step towards the people and with his approach invites them to embrace his call;
o There is certainly the requirement from the part of the follower or the one who asks for the need, that is, the faith; faith is being available for the Act of God in our life without losing the trust and confidence even if he is belated in fulfilling our need;
o Many a time we are discouraged when some favor does not occur to us if after the prayer; it is because we want to have an immediate answer and when this doesn’t happen we lose heart and we give up cursing and blaming God for his silence;
o We have to learn from the Canaanite woman who, in spite of Jesus’ silence to her, kept on asking with the firm confidence and finally Jesus, viewing the continuous and unwavering faith of her, grant her what she asks for;
o It is not difficult to Jesus to give (or do) immediately what is asked; but we want to verify the disposition of the person in the confrontation with him and that’s the reason why, many a time, we see him either silent or taking his time in granting us what we ask; His silence and his slowness in responding does not make our faith stumble or waver;
- What is faith that can be derived from the reading of today:
o Faith is not just believing everything without verifying its contextual content;
o It is not following immediately and blindly all that is asked without knowing its truth;
o It is ‘being exposed or being available’ to the Act of God and this act of God could be in various forms; may be the manifestation in a miracle or a call for the renunciation of everything for him;
o We are called to be available for this act of God with total commitment and firm faith and persistent prayer and complete disposition;
o When we are like this Jesus would surely tell us: my dear, great is your faith! Let it be done as you have wished!