Theme: Let us delight Jesus by our faith.
Scripture: 1 King 11:4-13; Ps. 105:3-4, 35-37, 40; Mk. 7:24-30
After listening to the wisdom of Solomon yesterday, we are introduced to Solomon’s foolishness. Solomon became unfaithful to God. God had appeared to him at two occasions. He had blessed him with wisdom to rule the kingdom. Solomon experienced prosperity in his life. The age should have helped him to grow in wisdom but it did not happen in his case. He turned against God. He built places of worship for the gods of his wives; namely Astarte, the god of Sidonians and Chemosh, the god of Moab. He incensed them and offered sacrifices for their gods. He worshipped them along with his wives. As a matter of fact, some of these gods were invoked for war. The people offered human sacrifices to please these gods. They were also considered to be fertility cults. Solomon had everything in his life; wisdom and material prosperity. Above all he had the presence of God in his newly built temple. He could offer sacrifices to his loving God yet he turned away from God and began to worship other gods. He became slave of flesh. The sin entered into his life.
On the other hand, Jesus, the wisdom of God reveals to us that the people of other religions came to him for the healing. This is a beautiful story of intercessory prayer of a mother. Jesus challenged her faith to extract her deep faith in him. He rebuffed her by pointing out that she was a pagan. The Jews in those days called the pagans ‘dogs’. Jesus reminded her status. In other words, He told her that she was not privileged. Yet she showed heroic faith in Jesus. Let us look at the way she approached Jesus. She came and fell at his feet. It shows her gesture of homage to Jesus. She begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter. It shows that she loved her daughter very much. She accepted her unworthiness but never stopped pleading before Jesus. This shows her humility and perseverance. There are many virtues that we can see in this woman that every Christian should have in his or her life of faith. She was humble, full of faith, fervent, modest, respectful, rational, relying on the mercy of God and important persevering. Isn’t her prayer short and to the point? She did not even offer sacrifices and gifts to Jesus for favours. Jesus was delighted to see her faith. Jesus did not know who the girl was, he did not even touch her but Jesus healed her daughter by a touch. Mark, the evangelist tells us that she is the only person called Jesus, “the Lord” in the whole of Gospel.
We also live in multi ethnic culture. We also get into such situations where we please our fellow brothers and sisters to gain material benefits rather than pleasing God. Let us not fall into the traps of life like Solomon but learn from the Syro-Phoenician woman to believe in Jesus. She did not know true God but when she approached Jesus, her faith saved her daughter. The real salvation is in Jesus. Let us come to Jesus in the Sacrament of Eucharist. He offers his body as bread for us. We are the privileged ones. We are the children of God. We can receive the bread but many do not have this privilege. Let us delight Jesus by our faith.
Fr. Alex D’Mello
