Persevering faith

Today's Gospel at first will give us the impression that Jesus, after all, was not so kind-hearted as we are often told, and not really the universal saviour we have been always taught.

If we reflect carefully on it, however, and if we concentrate on the way today's episode is concluded, we soon become aware that it is here precisely that these two qualities of Jesus' mission, his loving kindness for all and his universal salvific mission, become strongly emphasised.

As Jesus was travelling across the pagan area of Tyre and Sidon, a woman from that area, a Canaanite by birth, saw Jesus passing by. We are not told how she soon recognised him as a miracle worker. His fame must have already spread throughout Palestine. As usual, he was accompanied by his disciples, and we can therefore conclude that whatever he did at that time was to convey a message meant to become relevant to them in the fulfilment of their future mission.

The woman picked up enough courage and cried aloud: "Have pity on me, Lord, son of David. My daughter is cruelly troubled by an evil spirit!" This striking prayer of the poor woman did not at first meet a favourable response from Jesus and the disciples.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus, very much against his proverbial correct and kind behaviour, "gave her no word in answer". Worse still was the disciples' insistence: "Rid us of her! She is annoying us with her cries!" To which Jesus replied stating that his mission was only "for the lost sheep of Israel", a statement which, in the light of all his other teachings as well of what will soon follow, was intended to mean that the Jewish people, to whom he belonged as the expected Messiah, were to be the first to receive God's message of salvation, a message which was to be soon extended to the whole human race of all times.

The woman's insistence, as we read in the Gospel, had not yet come to an end. Falling at his feet, she went on imploring: "Lord help me!" And Jesus' reply could not but be this: "Woman, for this great faith of yours, let your will be granted."

Persevering faith against all odds: this is the final message of today's episode, a message that is ever more relevant today both to each one of us individual believers as well as to the Church as a whole. Genuine faith is based not so much on our needs and prayerful disposition, as on Christ's infinite mercy, on his goodness and saving power.

While genuine faith needs to be substantiated by good works, it is in no way based on the works themselves, no matter how great and generous, but on God's infinite mercy.

This we can clearly recover from today's Gospel, where we meet the Canaanite woman. All she did was to go to Jesus and insistently place her needs before him. Her title to the Lord's mercy was nothing but her utter need and her faith in his great mercy.

We also gather from today's episode that faith is far from being a sheer feeling by which one may become favourably attracted to Jesus' great personality. True faith is certainty about God's will to save, to save everyone, without exception, so long as we leave room for him in our minds and hearts, in our lives and interests. That is why genuine faith needs to be qualified by perseverance and strengthened by constant prayer.