Daily Gospel Reflection
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August 7, 2019
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.
On my first, second, and third readings of this Gospel, I couldn’t quite accept how troubling it was for me. A woman asks for Jesus’ assistance, and first, he ignores her. Second, he tells her he was not sent for her. Third, he says “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Her response implicitly accepts this comparison to dogs.
In the end, in spite of all this, the woman is granted exactly what she asks of Jesus, nothing less. In the beginning of the passage, Jesus responds to the woman according to the social scripts that governed relationships between Jews and Canaanites. By the end of the passage, he has completely reversed his position and subverted those social scripts. In doing so, he also reverses his statements that he was “sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Thanks to the faith of the Canaanite woman, we learn that Jesus was sent to save all the people of the world, not just Israel. This certainly would have been very controversial to Jesus’ contemporaries.
In Anne Lamott’s Hallelujah Anyway, she writes of the difficulty of loving real people. It’s a passage I think about at least once a month because it is hard to love real people. Real people are annoying: they talk too much, they have too many opinions, they misspeak and misunderstand and unintentionally hurt. Real people, in short, are imperfect, as am I. But I’m supposed to love real people (including myself) anyway.
I spent the year before law school completing a year of service in Portland, OR, serving folks experiencing homelessness. The people I served were not perfect. Some of the folks I served were drug addicts. Some of them were criminals. Some of them were misogynists, racists, homophobes. And I had signed up to serve them anyway because that’s what loving real people is. It was not in my position description to determine the “worthiness” of any person who walked through our door; it was in my position description to treat them with dignity and respect. Full stop. No exceptions.
That’s not easy, but I don’t think we accurately understand what it means to love others until we accept that sometimes that love is gifted to people we didn’t expect. Sometimes our lives will positively impact even people we do not like, people we find objectionable, people we do not want to help. But like Jesus in this story, we must see past our objections and see their inherent dignity. We must love them anyway, respect them anyway, serve them anyway.
Prayer
Blessed are you, O Lord our God. Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, promised that people of all races or cultural backgrounds will be blessed in their persistent faith in your divine power and compassion. May we in our prayer also be so blessed as to receive those spiritual gifts that will assist us in giving you honor and glory. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Cajetan lived in the early 1500s in Italy, at a time when the Church was marked by corruption and indifference. In response, like an effective team captain rallying other players, he reenergized a community of priests who reformed the Church with their zeal and service to the poor.
He was born in 1480 to noble parents, and attended the University of Padua where he dedicated himself to studies and prayer. He received doctorates in civil and canon law and returned to his hometown, where he was appointed a senator. After a time, he discerned a call to the priesthood, and was ordained when he was 33.
He began to gather other priests around him to care for the poor and sick. Because Cajetan was of noble status, he could have selected anywhere to minister—at court, or in the hierarchy at the Vatican. Instead, he sought out the priests who were living and working among the people of the streets. Though this offended his friends, he persisted. He even founded a bank to offer poor people an alternative to loan sharks.
The group founded a hospital for those suffering from incurable diseases. He told his brother clerics that in church “we try to serve God by worship; in our hospital we may say that we actually find him."
The Church itself was sick at that time—many of the clergy were corrupt and indifferent. Cajetan and his community of brother priests decided to formalize their efforts as a religious community dedicated to zeal and to spreading authentic faith through their personal witness. They preached, cared for the sick, encouraged people to receive the sacraments frequently, and urged pastors to live a dedicated life of service.
He spent the rest of his life working to reform the Church and mediating civil conflicts. His community of priests went on to play a key role in the reformation of the Church. When he fell ill in 1547, his doctors ordered him to lay on a mattress instead of the bare boards he used for his bed. “My savior died on a cross,” Cajetan said. “Allow me at least to die on wood.”
St. Cajetan’s relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. He is patron saint of workers and of those seeking employment.
St. Cajetan, who led priests and rallied the Church with his zeal and commitment to the poor, pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Cajetan is in the public domain. Last accessed March 28, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
