Reflection for WEDNESDAY, 18th Week, Ordinary Time.
By
Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Assistant Parish Priest, Manjeshwar, Kasargod
Gospel Passage of the day
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.
Reflection on the Readings
Whenever we desperately need a favour from someone, the most obvious word that will be needed in our request is the word "help".
Obviously, we are not just asking for a favour. We need that person to help us and we need that help desperately.
More so if the other person is not obligated to help us or that we are not so deserving of the help from that person, then something more needs to be done.
We will have to appeal to the mercy and compassion of that person.
That was what the Canaanite woman did. When she said "Son of David, take pity on me" she knew that Jesus was not obligated to help her but she appealed to His mercy.
Of course, we may be astonished or amused by the conversation between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, the point is that Jesus eventually gave her what she requested for.
But in the 1st reading, we heard about the people raising their voices and cried aloud and wailed all night just because they were told that the opposition they were facing were just too much for them.
They disparaged the country that the Lord was going to give them, and yet they did not turn to the Lord for His mercy and help.
And for that they had to pay the price of a generation who will have to be buried in the desert.
In life, we have our desperate moments and urgent needs. We can worry and fret and be over-anxious.
But let us turn to the Lord and appeal to His mercy. We just need to say, "Lord, have pity on me, and help me".
We don't need to spend 40 years in the desert just to learn this.
August 9 | St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
A brilliant philosopher who stopped believing in God when she was 14, Edith Stein was so captivated by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila that she began a spiritual journey that led to her baptism in 1922. Twelve years later she imitated Saint Teresa by becoming a Carmelite, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
Born into a prominent Jewish family in Breslau, Germany—now Wroclaw, Poland—Edith abandoned Judaism in her teens. As a student at the University of Göttingen, she became fascinated by phenomenology, an approach to philosophy. Excelling as a protégé of Edmund Husserl, one of the leading phenomenologists, Edith earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1916. She continued as a university teacher until 1922 when she moved to a Dominican school in Speyer; her appointment as lecturer at the Educational Institute of Munich ended under pressure from the Nazis.
After living for four years in the Cologne Carmel, Sister Teresa Benedicta moved to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands, in 1938. The Nazis occupied that country in 1940. In retaliation for being denounced by the Dutch bishops, the Nazis arrested all Dutch Jews who had become Christians. Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.
Pope John Paul II beatified Teresa Benedicta of the Cross in 1987, and canonized her 12 years later.
St. Teresa Benedicta, pray for us.
GOD BLESS YOU
Good morning. Have a nice day.