Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, August 15, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)
August 15, 2020

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The text that guided the homily was: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when Jesus will give a pagan woman the greatest compliment he could give to anyone, the type of tribute he wanted to give to every one of his fellow Jews, the accolade he wants to give every Christian, the commendation he wants to say about each of us now and when we meet him face-to-face: “Great is your faith!” Jesus’ praise was not cheap. It was a result of the way the woman responded to the terrible problem of having a possessed daughter and all the problems that likely led to her possession and followed it. It was the result of a dialogue with Jesus that would have tested her faith to the limit. It was the end result of a process of growth in faith that culminated with Jesus’ amazed acclaim. In Sunday’s Gospel we are able to enter the scene and learn from this Syro-Phoenician woman how we, too, can grow in faith so that our faith may genuinely become great.
• The question we ought to ask at the outset, however, is whether our faith is great or small or just average right now. Are we living by faith? Is our faith the most important aspect of our self-identity? Jesus once wondered aloud whether we he returned whether he would find faith on earth at all (Lk 18:8). If Jesus were to come right now, would he compliment us like he praised the Canaanite woman or would he say of us what he often said of some of his closest followers at the beginning: “O you of little faith?” Most of us, if we’re honest, would be like the man whose son Jesus healed of possession to whom Jesus said, “All things are possible to one who has faith,” who responded, “Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief!” This Sunday Jesus gives us that help through his interaction with the Syro-Phoenician woman. We see her great faith shine and grow in three tests Jesus gave her.
• The first test happened when she went up to Jesus and called out, “Have pity on me Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” What was Jesus’ response? Total silence. St. Matthew, an eyewitness, tells us, “He did not say a word in answer to him.” It seems almost a cruel thing to do to a desperate mother. But Jesus, who almost certainly was prepared to work the exorcism, wanted to effectuate a far greater miracle on that day on behalf of the woman, on behalf of the disciples with him, and on behalf of all of us, and to do that, he needed to try her faith. For us, we, too, need to learn how to deal with God’s silence. We pray and we don’t seem to get a response. We pray again and it seems the door has remained shut. How we do handle it? Many of us give up, we stop praying, we think God doesn’t care, but what God is often doing in these circumstances is giving us a chance to learn how to pray perseveringly so that we may grow in faith to such a degree that we will always persevere in fidelity. Regardless, when Jesus responded to the woman with cold silence, perhaps even seeming to ignore her, the woman didn’t give up.
• Her second attempt was intercession. She ran up to the disciples and asked them to intervene. We can imagine her grabbing on their clothes and arms, raising her voice, begging their assistance. The disciples had had it. They approached Jesus and said, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” They were asking Jesus to work a miracle just to get rid of the bothersome lady. Jesus refused their advances, too. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” She was a pagan have-not. It would have been easy for her to go away and wallow in self-pity. It would have been easy for her to call Jesus and the apostles hypocrites, heartless and other names. But she was not going to give up.
• Having been rebuffed a second time, she ran up to Jesus fell down on her stomach before him and begged, simply, “Lord, help me!” “Help!” is one of the most poignant expressions that exist in any language. But Jesus responded, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” We don’t know if Jesus said this with a wink of the eye or with a tone in the voice to soften it, but the expression Jesus used was hugely insulting. In the ancient world, most dogs were stray, eating your trash, defecating at your front door, attacking kids when they were playing in the squares. To call someone a stray dog in contrast to children was about the most denigrating thing that could have been said. Many of us, if we had been called by Jesus something similar may have just stopped in our tracks and wept or insisted to be treated with greater respect. This woman didn’t. Instead, she agreedwith Jesus. “Yes, Lord, but even the little dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” She changed Jesus’ word “dog” into “little dog,” saying that even little puppies eat the little crumbs that fall from the children’s table. She was essentially saying that, yes, she is an insignificant little dog barking incessantly, who knows she’s not worthy to receive what the children receive. But she was professing her faith that Jesus was Lord, and Good Shepherd, even of the littlest poodles, and even the littlest crumb of his mercy would be enough to work the exorcism of her daughter.
• Jesus was moved by the woman’s persistence, by the woman’s great trust, by the woman’s deep theological understanding, and so he proclaimed what had been revealed over the course of their dialogue: “O woman, great is your faith!” Her faith was not crumb-like in size. It wasn’t a mustard seed. It was much bigger, and faith like that can move mountains. Jesus then worked the miracle the woman had been requesting: “Let it be done for you as you wish,” an echo of what his Mother had said in faith to the Archangel Gabriel. And St. Matthew tells us that the woman’s daughter was healed from that very instant.
• This Sunday at Mass, we will meet the same Lord the Canaanite woman did. He will not give us leftover crumbs from the table, but will nourish us first with every word that comes from his mouth and then with himself as the Bread of Life. Let’s ask him to give us the grace of holy perseverance in prayer, in the Christian life, in faith, so that the Lord may say of us today, tomorrow and at the day he comes for us, “Great is your faith” and give us a seat with all those who have become great in faith at the eternal banquet of God’s children.

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download