Book of Isaiah 56,1.6-7. Thus says the LORD: Observe what is right, do what is just; for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, ministering to him, Loving the name of the LORD, and becoming his servants-- All who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant, Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer; Their holocausts and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
Psalms 67(66)
May God have pity on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us. So may your way be known upon earth; among all nations, your salvation.
May the nations be glad and exult because you rule the peoples in equity; the nations on the earth you guide.
May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you! May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
Letter to the Romans 11,13-15.29-32. Brothers and sisters: I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I glory in my ministry in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. Just as you once disobeyed God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now disobeyed in order that, by virtue of the mercy shown to you, they too may (now) receive mercy. For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 15,21-28. At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us." He said in reply, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman came and did him homage, saying, "Lord, help me." He said in reply, "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters." Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed from that hour.
This Sunday’s Gospel (see Mt 15:21-28) describes the meeting between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Jesus is to the north of Galilee, in foreign territory. The woman was not Jewish, she was Canaanite. Jesus is there to spend some time with His disciples away from the crowds, from the crowds whose numbers are always growing. And behold, a woman approached Him seeking help for her sick daughter: “Have mercy on me, Lord!” (v. 22). It is the cry that is born out of a life marked by suffering, from the sense of the helplessness of a mamma who sees her daughter tormented by evil who cannot be healed; she cannot heal her. Jesus initially ignores her, but this mother insists; she insists, even when the Master says to the disciples that His mission is directed only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24) and not to the pagans. She continues to beg Him, and at that point, He puts her to the test, citing a proverb. It’s a bit…this seems almost a bit cruel, but she puts her to the test: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (v. 26). And right away, the woman, quick, anguished, responds: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (v. 27).
And with these words, that mother shows that she has perceived the goodness of the Most High God present in Jesus who is open to any of His creatures necessities. And this wisdom, filled with trust, touches Jesus’s heart and provokes words of admiration: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (v. 28). What type of faith is great? Great faith is that which brings its own story, marked even by wounds, and brings it to the Lord’s feet asking Him to heal them, to give them meaning.
Each one of us has our own story and it is not always a story “of export”, it is not always a clean story… Many times it is a difficult story, with a lot of pain, many misfortunes and many sins. What do I do with my story? Do I hide it? No! We must bring it before the Lord. “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” This is what this woman teaches us, this wonderful mother: the courage to bring our own painful story before God, before Jesus, to touch God’s tenderness, Jesus’s tenderness. Let’s try this story, this prayer: let each one of us think of his or her own story. There are always ugly things in a story, always. Let us go to Jesus, knock on Jesus’s heart and say to Him: “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” And we can do this if we always have the face of Jesus before us, if we understand what Christ’s heart is like, what Jesus’s heart is like: a heart that feels compassion, that bears our pains, that bears our sins, our mistakes, our failures. But it is a heart that love us like that, as we are, without make-up: He loves us like that. “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” This is why it is necessary to understand Jesus, to be familiar with Jesus. I always go back to the advice that I give you: always carry a small pocket-size Gospel and read a passage every day. There you will find Jesus as He is, as He presents Himself; you will find Jesus who loves us, who loves us a lot, who tremendously wants our well-being. Let us remember the prayer: “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” A beautiful prayer. Carry the Gospel: in your purse, in your pocket and even on your mobile phone, to look at. May the Lord help us, all of us, to pray this beautiful prayer, that a pagan woman teaches us: not a Christian woman, not a Jewish woman, a pagan woman.
May the Virgin Mary intercede with her prayer so that the joy of faith might grow in every baptized person as well as the desire to communicate it through a consistent witness of life, that she give us the courage to approach Jesus and to say to Him: “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!”
FAUSTI - Jesus comes out from the place where the Pharisees and scribes honor the Lord with their lips, but with their heart that is far from Him. He withdraws Himself in the pagan area, toward Tire and Sidon. It is an allusion to the passage of salvation to the pagans (Acts 13:46). The lack of faith drived Jesus away from His regions; Faith in turn lets the pagan woman from her regions to meet Him. "She cried, saying: Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!" Prayer has the strength of the shout but also the wisdom of a precise word. It is the fundamental prayer. Have pity means, "Grant to me grace, help me." The Canaanite woman does not claim and does not assert rights : she asks the gift to Him who is whole and only gift, recognizing in Him the Lord and the Messiah. This pagan woman does her profession of faith in Jesus:she recognizes Him as Son of David according to the flesh and as Lord, Son of God, according to the Spirit, and she asks for His salvation. The daughter of the Canaanite woman represents all the sons of Adam. Prey of mistrust, they are invaded by lie, possessed by evil. Jesus, in His historical mission, replied only to Israel, that was waiting for Him. This will then convey the gift to others. It may be surprising that God has spoken to some of His sons and not to others. Of course God speaks to everyone's heart. But, in order to speaking humanly, He has assumed the conditions of human speaking in which they speak to someone for whom they are someone. It is the "scandal" of the incarnation, center of faith. This woman recalls the ten pagans from nations of every language who will take an Israelite by the sleeve (Zec 8,20 ...). Woman asks for help despite the silence of the Lord and the resistance of His disciples. Jesus' answer is the hardest than a pagan could expect . Jews called pagans 'dogs'. The bread of the childrens will be given just to them. Not for merit - it is grace and gift! - but for great faith. "Even the little dogs" the dog lives of the crumbs falling from the table of the master the man of bread coming to it from Lord's hand. The faith of this woman is great, unlike that of the disciples, which is little; it is great as that of the pagan soldier, which arouses the wonder of Jesus. For this faith many will come from east and from west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (8,11) fed up the beatitude of those who eat the bread of the Kingdom. The Lord has come to earth to accomplish this woman's will: it is the same as the Father of Heaven (6:10), who wants to give His bread to His sons. The hour of faith is the same as of salvation, as for the son of the centurion (8.13). The mission of Jesus among the pagans, through the Canaanite woman, brings in His strong work of conversion besides of healing. His silence to the request and His response to the mediation of the disciples, which immediately places the woman in the category of the pagans, for the Jews "dogs", is to bring her in the humble recognition of her own congenital " lowliness". But precisely because of this let herself be carried down, she is immediately praised by Jesus for her great faith and she's granted ! Ezekiel said (17,24): "I am the Lord who humbles the high tree and raises the low tree..." the confident letting himself be led by His infinite Goodness to recognize our being His creatures, and to trust only in Him, manifests His bending over us! Even Mary, because She is little, can sing the wonders of the Lord who has looked upon the humility of His Servant and Magnify Him by seeing the Great Things He has done in His history and that of all! (Lk 1:40-56). To feel so infinitely loved, does it bring joy, always, even for us?
Book of Isaiah
RispondiElimina56,1.6-7.
Thus says the LORD: Observe what is right, do what is just; for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed.
And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, ministering to him, Loving the name of the LORD, and becoming his servants-- All who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant,
Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer; Their holocausts and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
Psalms 67(66)
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
Letter to the Romans
11,13-15.29-32.
Brothers and sisters: I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I glory in my ministry
in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them.
For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
Just as you once disobeyed God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
so they have now disobeyed in order that, by virtue of the mercy shown to you, they too may (now) receive mercy.
For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Saint Matthew 15,21-28.
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon."
But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us."
He said in reply, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, "Lord, help me."
He said in reply, "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs."
She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters."
Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed from that hour.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS 16 August 2020
Dear brothers and sisters, good day!
This Sunday’s Gospel (see Mt 15:21-28) describes the meeting between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Jesus is to the north of Galilee, in foreign territory. The woman was not Jewish, she was Canaanite. Jesus is there to spend some time with His disciples away from the crowds, from the crowds whose numbers are always growing. And behold, a woman approached Him seeking help for her sick daughter: “Have mercy on me, Lord!” (v. 22). It is the cry that is born out of a life marked by suffering, from the sense of the helplessness of a mamma who sees her daughter tormented by evil who cannot be healed; she cannot heal her. Jesus initially ignores her, but this mother insists; she insists, even when the Master says to the disciples that His mission is directed only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24) and not to the pagans. She continues to beg Him, and at that point, He puts her to the test, citing a proverb. It’s a bit…this seems almost a bit cruel, but she puts her to the test: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (v. 26). And right away, the woman, quick, anguished, responds: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (v. 27).
And with these words, that mother shows that she has perceived the goodness of the Most High God present in Jesus who is open to any of His creatures necessities. And this wisdom, filled with trust, touches Jesus’s heart and provokes words of admiration: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (v. 28). What type of faith is great? Great faith is that which brings its own story, marked even by wounds, and brings it to the Lord’s feet asking Him to heal them, to give them meaning.
Each one of us has our own story and it is not always a story “of export”, it is not always a clean story… Many times it is a difficult story, with a lot of pain, many misfortunes and many sins. What do I do with my story? Do I hide it? No! We must bring it before the Lord. “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” This is what this woman teaches us, this wonderful mother: the courage to bring our own painful story before God, before Jesus, to touch God’s tenderness, Jesus’s tenderness. Let’s try this story, this prayer: let each one of us think of his or her own story. There are always ugly things in a story, always. Let us go to Jesus, knock on Jesus’s heart and say to Him: “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” And we can do this if we always have the face of Jesus before us, if we understand what Christ’s heart is like, what Jesus’s heart is like: a heart that feels compassion, that bears our pains, that bears our sins, our mistakes, our failures. But it is a heart that love us like that, as we are, without make-up: He loves us like that. “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” This is why it is necessary to understand Jesus, to be familiar with Jesus. I always go back to the advice that I give you: always carry a small pocket-size Gospel and read a passage every day. There you will find Jesus as He is, as He presents Himself; you will find Jesus who loves us, who loves us a lot, who tremendously wants our well-being. Let us remember the prayer: “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!” A beautiful prayer. Carry the Gospel: in your purse, in your pocket and even on your mobile phone, to look at. May the Lord help us, all of us, to pray this beautiful prayer, that a pagan woman teaches us: not a Christian woman, not a Jewish woman, a pagan woman.
May the Virgin Mary intercede with her prayer so that the joy of faith might grow in every baptized person as well as the desire to communicate it through a consistent witness of life, that she give us the courage to approach Jesus and to say to Him: “Lord, if You will it, you can heal me!”
FAUSTI - Jesus comes out from the place where the Pharisees and scribes honor the Lord with their lips, but with their heart that is far from Him. He withdraws Himself in the pagan area, toward Tire and Sidon.
RispondiEliminaIt is an allusion to the passage of salvation to the pagans (Acts 13:46).
The lack of faith drived Jesus away from His regions; Faith in turn lets the pagan woman from her regions to meet Him.
"She cried, saying: Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!" Prayer has the strength of the shout but also the wisdom of a precise word. It is the fundamental prayer. Have pity means, "Grant to me grace, help me." The Canaanite woman does not claim and does not assert rights : she asks the gift to Him who is whole and only gift, recognizing in Him the Lord and the Messiah.
This pagan woman does her profession of faith in Jesus:she recognizes Him as Son of David according to the flesh and as Lord, Son of God, according to the Spirit, and she asks for His salvation.
The daughter of the Canaanite woman represents all the sons of Adam. Prey of mistrust, they are invaded by lie, possessed by evil.
Jesus, in His historical mission, replied only to Israel, that was waiting for Him.
This will then convey the gift to others. It may be surprising that God has spoken to some of His sons and not to others. Of course God speaks to everyone's heart. But, in order to speaking humanly, He has assumed the conditions of human speaking in which they speak to someone for whom they are someone.
It is the "scandal" of the incarnation, center of faith.
This woman recalls the ten pagans from nations of every language who will take an Israelite by the sleeve (Zec 8,20 ...). Woman asks for help despite the silence of the Lord and the resistance of His disciples.
Jesus' answer is the hardest than a pagan could expect .
Jews called pagans 'dogs'. The bread of the childrens will be given just to them.
Not for merit - it is grace and gift! - but for great faith.
"Even the little dogs" the dog lives of the crumbs falling from the table of the master the man of bread coming to it from Lord's hand.
The faith of this woman is great, unlike that of the disciples, which is little; it is great as that of the pagan soldier, which arouses the wonder of Jesus.
For this faith many will come from east and from west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (8,11) fed up the beatitude of those who eat the bread of the Kingdom.
The Lord has come to earth to accomplish this woman's will: it is the same as the Father of Heaven (6:10), who wants to give His bread to His sons.
The hour of faith is the same as of salvation, as for the son of the centurion (8.13).
The mission of Jesus among the pagans, through the Canaanite woman, brings in His strong work of conversion besides of healing. His silence to the request and His response to the mediation of the disciples, which immediately places the woman in the category of the pagans, for the Jews "dogs", is to bring her in the humble recognition of her own congenital " lowliness".
But precisely because of this
let herself be carried down,
she is immediately praised by Jesus for her great faith and she's granted !
Ezekiel said (17,24): "I am the Lord who humbles the high tree and raises the low tree..." the confident letting himself be led by His infinite Goodness to recognize our being His creatures, and to trust only in Him, manifests His bending over us!
Even Mary, because She is little, can sing the wonders of the Lord who has looked upon the humility of His Servant and Magnify Him by seeing the Great Things He has done in His history and that of all! (Lk 1:40-56).
To feel so infinitely loved, does it bring joy, always, even for us?