In this Gospel account, Our Lord’s actions are surprising, even disconcerting. When a Canaanite woman, a pagan, implores his help for her tormented daughter, Jesus does not say a word. But she would not be put off. She keeps calling after him to the point that the apostles thought her a nuisance to be sent away. Our Lord then responds: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Here Jesus was affirming that the Gospel was to be preached first to the Jews and later to the Gentiles. Basically, Jesus told her, that her time would come, but only later. Most of us would take offense or scandal. How could this friend of the poor, this man of infinite charity, treat her in this way?
Still, the woman would not be rebuffed. She prostrated herself before the Lord, “Lord, I pray you, help me!” Then comes the most bewildering reply of the Lord: “It is not right to take the food of children and throw it to the dogs.” The children are the Jewish people. The dogs are the pagans. At this point, anyone would have turned away infuriated. But the Canaanite woman is steadfast.
Reflecting on this scene, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa uses the image of pole vaulting. With every successful vault, the bar is raised a little higher to see how far one can go to clear it. The same happens in faith. With every obstacle we overcome, God raises the bar challenging us to greater, deeper faith. The woman makes this final vault and responds twisting Jesus’ imagery to her advantage: “…even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Jesus who had tussled with her thus far, rejoices: “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” At that moment, her daughter was healed.
This was not the only miracle to occur. The woman becomes a believer, the pagan, a disciple. If Jesus had responded to her first request, all would have ended with the healing of her daughter. But now, a disciple is born.
Think of our own prayers. How often we pray for something for weeks, months, even years and God seems deaf, unconcerned. Even St. John XXIII once remarked, “God often arrives fifteen minutes later than my schedule.”
The Canaanite is our model for perseverance in prayer. Isaiah the prophet said, “O you, who are to remind the Lord, take no rest and give no rest to him.” She did not let Jesus rest. At first, Jesus may appear as insensitive toward the woman. But we now know what motivated the Lord’s action. He was raising the bar to allow great faith to be born in her.
Jesus often does the same with us. His seeming silence or delay is a call to greater faith, a call to help us realize that what God wants for us is far greater than what we may ask.
St. Augustine often referred to this Gospel scene when writing about prayer. He called the Canaanite, “the woman who conquered Jesus with her faith.” Perhaps she reminded him of his own mother, Monica who for years persevered in prayer for his conversion. His mother did what the Canaanite woman did: “She asked, she sought, she knocked at the door and received.”
