NOT FOR YOU?
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
First reading (Isaiah 56:1, 6-7)
Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8)
Second reading (Romans 11:13-15, 29-32)
Gospel (Matthew 15:21-28)
When was the last time you were turned away when you asked for something? When was the last time people said, “It’s not for you” right after you request for something? When was the last time you turned someone and his/her request down because your time and attention have been reserved for something else? We are called to remember such instances by our gospel reading (from the account of Matthew) for this 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
We hear of how Jesus initially tried to send away a Canaanite woman simply because she was a Canaanite (not a member of the chosen people Jesus was believed to have come to save). When the Canaanite woman asked for the healing of her daughter, Jesus said “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Despite hearing the words of Jesus that seemed to send her away, the Canaanite woman tried again, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Because of this, Jesus healed her daughter.
When was the last time you were turned away when you asked for something? When was the last time people said, “It’s not for you” right after you request for something? When was the last time you turned someone and his/her request down because your time and attention have been reserved for something else? We are called to remember such instances by our gospel reading (from the account of Matthew) for this 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
We hear of how Jesus initially tried to send away a Canaanite woman simply because she was a Canaanite (not a member of the chosen people Jesus was believed to have come to save). When the Canaanite woman asked for the healing of her daughter, Jesus said “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Despite hearing the words of Jesus that seemed to send her away, the Canaanite woman tried again, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Because of this, Jesus healed her daughter.
Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters. Dogs,
as used here, may refer to those whom the grace of God is not intended. Dogs
here are the undeserving. But even these dogs that do not deserve the grace of
God get a taste, a glimpse, of the grace God intends for His people. This
glimpse, this taste of God’s grace is mercy. The woman realized that even if
salvation wasn’t specifically promised to her people, they nonetheless
experience such salvation in the many tiny graces they receive in their lives.
Even when Jesus initially turned down the woman’s request, He saw how she saw
God’s mercy as scraps that fall from the master’s table.
Our time, our attention, our justice, our mercy and our compassion may not be
intended for some people we dislike or find undeserving, but even the Lord
allows these people other chances to be better. When we say to them, “it is not
for you,” God says otherwise. If we can receive and appreciate these little
mercies God gives us every day, can’t we share them and be the little mercies
and graces of God to others who are “undeserving”?
Let us see the mercy of God in the eyes of the Canaanite woman: God’s mercy is for all. God may say that the salvation He offers is “not for you,” but there is a second line to it, “it is for all.”
Let us see the mercy of God in the eyes of the Canaanite woman: God’s mercy is for all. God may say that the salvation He offers is “not for you,” but there is a second line to it, “it is for all.”
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