5th August. Wednesday, Week 18
Dedication of the basilica of Saint Mary Major
This is the largest of the Roman churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It is sometimes called Our Lady of the Snows, (Sancta Maria ad Nives) from the story of a childless Roman nobleman who vowed to donate his property to the Virgin Mary and prayed her to reveal how best to do so. That night, August 5th, snow fell during the night on the summit of the Esquiline Hill; and on that spot he built a basilica in memory of our Lady. This church has been a great centre of devotion, and under the high altar of the basilica is the Crypt of the Nativity said to contain wood from the manger of the nativity of Jesus.
1st Reading: Numbers 13:1-2, etc
God’s anger at the complaints of the Israelites
The Lord said to Moses, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.” And at the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.
And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: How long shall this wicked congregation complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they complain against me. Say to them, “As I live,” says the Lord, “I will do to you the very things I heard you say: your dead bodies shall fall in this very desert; and of all your number, included in the census, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.” I the Lord have spoken; surely I will do thus to all this wicked congregation gathered together against me: in this desert they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.
Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus heals the Canaanite woman’s daughter
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
God’s transforming touch
The readings encourage hope, enabling us to persevere in spite of rejection and delay, for God is merciful. The Israelites gave up so quickly, but the Canaanite woman would not take no for an answer. The scouts returned from Canaan with a glorious report about the land’s fertility and sweetness – a land flowing with milk and honey, and fruit so heavy that it took two men to carry a single bunch of grapes on a pole. But the scouts also told of giants and a heavily walled city guarded by a fierce and strong people, that made the Israelites lose heart. God does not push his people about; it was their own fear that condemned them to wandering in the desert.
Jesus, too, is transformative. At first he would not even answer the Canaanite woman, when his disciples came up and begged entreat him to get rid of her. Then his first words to her sound very blunt, “My mission is only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The world mission of the church was not yet clearly envisioned. Yet there are hints that he perceived a vision beyond the horizon of his words. Jesus’ non-verbal commentary indicates just as much right here. First, his silence may be interpreted as an unwillingness to reject her request. Then we find that he could not simply walk away from the woman but talked with her till she wore down his defenses. Finally, by his affirmative response to her plea, Jesus steps beyond his verbal statement into the future outreach of the church, which is so gloriously expressed in the theology of Paul.
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Tenacious faith
The gospel today puts before us a pagan woman of tenacious faith. The initial response of Jesus to her desperate cry for help was one of silence. When the woman persisted with her request and Jesus addresses her directly for the first time, he seems to dismiss her request in a rather harsh fashion. Just as the woman was not put off by Jesus’ silence, she is not put off by his seemingly harsh refusal. She takes Jesus’ image of feeding the children rather than the house-dogs, the people of Israel rather than the pagans, and turns it to her own advantage. Eventually Jesus acknowledges her persistent and humble faith and grants her request. The gospel reading suggests that as far as Jesus was concerned the time had not yet come to bring the gospel to pagans; it would come later, after his death and resurrection. Yet, this woman succeeded in bringing forward that timetable by her persistent faith in the face of the Lord’s great reluctance. Jesus spoke at one point of a faith that can move mountains. This woman’s faith certainly moved Jesus. This pagan woman encourages all of us to remain faithful, even when the grounds for faithfulness seem to be very weak. She inspires us to keep seeking the Lord, even when the Lord appears to be silent and distant. [Martin Hogan]