20th Sunday of the Year
Isaiah 56:1, 6–7; Romans 11:13–15, 29–32; Matthew 15:21–28

The old woman’s doubts
The way to grow in our faith is to exercise it, especially by reaching out to others in love.

Asix-year-old went to a friend’s house to eat. When everyone was seated, she bowed her head and waited for someone to say grace. When no one did, she said sheepishly,
You’re like my dog; you just start in.

Jews felt the same way about Gentiles. To them, Gentiles
were spiritual dogs. They were grossly insensitive to God.
This brings us to an important point in today’s gospel reading.
Scholars note that the Greek word that Jesus used for “dogs” in the expression It isn’t right to throw food to dogs is the diminutive form. It refers to lap dogs, not street dogs.
Jesus used the word in an affectionate way, just as we use the word rascal affectionately: You little rascal, you!

The woman’s response indicates this. She says, probably with a smile, Even dogs eat crumbs that fall to the floor. In other words, the woman is saying to Jesus, I know your priority must now be with Israel; but as you feed Israel,  couldn’t you slip a little food to me, just as little boys slip food to their pets when their parents aren’t looking?

Jesus answers her, You are a woman of great faith! What you want will be done for you.

What a beautiful thing to have Jesus say of you.

This raises a question. Why do some people have a strong faith and others a weak faith? Why do some people find it easy to believe while others find it hard?

And that leads to a more important question. If our faith is weak, is there anything we can do to make it stronger? Let’s look briefly at each of these questions.

First, why do some people have a weak faith and others a strong one? This is almost like asking why some people have poor health and others do not.


Some people have poor physical health because their parents did. They inherited a fragile body. On the other hand, some people have poor health because they don’t take care of themselves.

What is true of physical health is also true of spiritual health, our faith.

Some people have weak faith because their parents did.
Spiritual health is inherited in almost the same way physical health is. If parents are lukewarm in their faith, this usually rubs off on their children. On the other hand, our faith may be weak because we haven’t taken care of it.

This brings us to the second question. Regardless of the reason for our weak faith, what can we do to strengthen it?

Faith might be compared to a muscle. If we don’t exercise a muscle, it grows weak. On the other hand, the more you exercise it, the stronger it grows. Our faith is somewhat like
a muscle. It, too, responds to exercise.

There are several ways to exercise faith. We can study the gospels and talk about them, as we are doing now. We can
be more attentive during the Eucharist, which we’ll celebrate a few minutes from now. We can take up the habit of daily prayer.

But there’s one way to exercise our faith that seems to be especially powerful. It is a way that deserves special attention.
Dostoevski refers to it in his book, The Brothers Karamazov.

In the book there’s an old woman whose spiritual health begins to deteriorate. as rapidly as her physical health.
One day she discusses her problem with an old priest, named Fr. Zossima. She tells him about her weak faith and the doubts she is beginning to have: Is there a God who cares?
Is there life after death? Fr. Zossima listens compassionately and says:

There’s no way to prove these things, but you can become more sure of them. How? cries the old woman. By love, says the old priest. Try to love your neighbor from the heart. The more you love, the surer you will become about God’s existence and life after death. The more you love, the stronger your faith will grow
and the weaker your doubts will become. This is sure. This has been tried. This works.

What Fr. Zossima says is beautiful. He makes the important point that love and faith go hand in hand. They are like the two rails of a train track. Where you find one, you find the other. Faith and love are linked like body and soul.

Albert Schweitzer, the great missionary doctor, makes the same point in his book Reverence for Life. He says something to this effect:

Do you want to believe in Jesus? Do you really want to believe in him? Then you must do something for him. In this age of doubt there is no other way. If for his sake you give someone
something to eat, or drink, or wear which Jesus promised to bless as though it were done to him then you will see that you really did it for him. Jesus will reveal himself to you, as one
who is alive.

This brings us back to the woman in the gospel. She came to Jesus for another, not herself. She came out of love.  She came as a loving, faith-filled mother.

May I make a suggestion? I believe each gospel carries with it
a special grace when it is read at Mass.

If you are a parent who feels the need to strengthen your faith, do what the woman did. Begin the habit, starting this week,
of going to Jesus on a daily basis to ask his blessing on your children.

And if you are a young person who feels the need to  strengthen your faith, do what Dostoevski and Schweitzer said.
Begin acting in a more loving way toward your parents and brothers and sisters.

And now for one parting thought about faith. Even the most physically healthy person has bad days. That’s just
the way human life is.

For example, on one day life’s depressing. It’s an exasperating experience. We find fault with everyone and everything.  We curse our enemies and shout at our friends.

On another day life’s exciting. It’s an exhilarating experience.
We love everyone and everything. We forgive our enemies  and hug our friends.

Faith is a lot like this too. On some days it’s bright and exciting. On other days it’s dark and exasperating.
The next time you have a bad “faith” day keep in mind this true story. It will help you get through the day and keep your perspective.

Shortly after World War II, workmen were clearing out
the debris from a bombed-out house in Cologne, Germany.
On one of the cellar walls of the house they found a moving inscription. It had apparently been written there by a fugitive Jew who had used the basement to hide from Nazis.
The inscription read:

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I feel it not. I believe in God even when he is silent.

Series II
20th Sunday of the Year
Isaiah 56:1, 6–7; Romans 11:13–15, 29–32; Matthew 15:21–28

Old Jewish legend
Faith involves doing everything we can do and trusting that God will do the rest.

Asix-year-old girl went to her friend’s house for supper.
When everyone was seated at the table, she bowed her head and waited for a prayer. When no one prayed, she smiled sheepishly and said, “I see you’re like my dog; you start
right in.”

Jews felt this way about Gentiles. They considered them grossly irreverent when it came to God and religion.
They regarded Gentiles as “spiritual” dogs.

This brings us to today’s gospel reading.

Scholars note that the Greek word that Jesus used to refer to the woman is the diminutive form for “dogs.” That means it refers to lap dogs or pet dogs, not street dogs.

In other words, Jesus used the word in an affectionate way,
just as we sometimes use the word rascal in an affectionate way. For example, a mother hugs her small son and says,
“I love you, you little rascal.”

The Canaanite woman’s response to Jesus shows that
she understood the word that way, too. She said to Jesus, probably with a smile, that even dogs eat the crumbs “that
fall from their masters’ table.”

In other words, she said to Jesus, “I know your priority must be to Jews,
but couldn’t you sneak a few crumbs to me,
just as little boys do to their pets
when their parents aren’t looking?”
Jesus answered her, saying,
“You are a woman of great faith!”
With that, he cured her daughter.

The woman’s aggressiveness in today’s gospel illustrates an important truth about faith. It is this: Faith is not something passive; it’s something active and aggressive.

It’s not sitting back and waiting for God to act.
It’s not sitting back and trusting God will act.
It’s standing up and urging God to act.
It’s making a nuisance of ourselves,
if necessary, to get God to act.

Take the woman in today’s gospel.

She is a perfect picture of a nuisance. To appreciate what
a nuisance she was, recall that the Canaanites were the traditional enemies of the Jews.
The woman did something no self-respecting Canaanite would ever do. She came to a Jew for help.

She did even more. She fell on her knees before that Jew
and begged for help.

She even got into a friendly argument with Jesus about why he should help her.

In other words, today’s gospel teaches us that faith involves aggressiveness. It teaches us what the old saying says: “God helps those who help themselves.”
Saint Ignatius of Loyola used to say, “Pray as though everything depends on God, but act and be aggressive
as if everything depends on us.”

That’s a good description of faith.
Let me illustrate what I mean by being aggressive.

There’s an old Jewish legend about Moses. It says that when he stretched out his staff across the Red Sea, as God told him to do, the sea didn’t divide and open up a path for the people to cross over.

That great miracle didn’t take place until an old Jewish couple stepped into the sea and started to walk across it.

The point of that story is that faith involves both our trust and our action. It isn’t sitting back and waiting for God to act. It’s taking the initiative and making things happen, as did the old Jewish couple in the legend.

This is such an important truth that I’d like to illustrate
it with another story that makes the same point, but from a slightly different perspective.

It’s a story you may have heard before, but it fits in so well with what we’re saying that it deserves repeating.

One spring a terrible flood engulfed a rural area. It stranded an old woman in her house. As the woman stood on the front porch, a man in a boat appeared and said, “I’ve come to save you.”
“No thanks,” said the woman. “I trust God completely. If worst comes to worst, he’ll save me.”

The next day the water rose to the second floor. As the
woman stood at her bedroom window, again, a man in
a boat  appeared and said, “I’ve come to save you.”

“No thanks,” said the woman. “I trust God completely. If worst comes to worst, he’ll save me.”

The next day the water rose to the roof. As the woman sat on the roof, a man appeared in a helicopter and said, “I’ve come to save you.”

“No thanks,” said the woman. “I trust God completely.
If worst comes to worst, he’ll save me.”

The next day the flood covered the house and the woman drowned. When she got to heaven, she said to Saint Peter,

“Before I go inside, I want to register a complaint. I trusted that God would save me from the flood, but he let me down.”

Peter gave the woman a puzzled look and said, “I don’t know what more the Lord could have done for you. He sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

Today’s gospel stresses the important truth that God doesn’t treat us like puppets. He treats us like partners.

In other words, we shouldn’t sit idly by and expect God to pull some string to save us every time we get into a jam.

Or to put it in yet another way, God doesn’t want us merely
to sit by and trust. He also wants us to roll up our sleeves and work. He expects us to trust and to work. This is the message of today’s gospel.

And so if peace is to come to our world,
if the hungry among us are to be fed,
if the homeless among us are to be housed,
if the naked among us are to be clothed,
if families are to be places of love,
if our children are to grow up wholesome,
we must do more than turn to God in prayer and trust.
We must also roll up our sleeves and work.

In other words, God has given us all the ordinary resources we need for normal daily living. Only when these ordinary resources fall short should we turn to God for a miracle.

And then we must do so with aggressiveness, as did the woman in today’s gospel.
In short, the message of today’s gospel comes down to this:We should trust as if everything depended on God, but work and be aggressive as if everything depended on us.

Series III
20th Sunday of the Year
Isaiah 56:1, 6–7; Romans 11:13–15, 29–32; Matthew 15:21–28

Faith
Work as if all depends on it; pray as if all depends on God.

Jesus said, “You are a woman of great faith! What you want will be done to you.” Matthew 15:28

During the 1930s Depression, I lived in a house just a few hundred feet from a railroad track. A rather large ditch lay beside the track. In the ditch was a hobo camp.

It was not unusual to see five or six hobos gathered together around a campfire with a large can of coffee, brewed from
old coffee grounds.

Regularly, these hobos would show up at our house for a handout of food. My mother never turned them away.
At times, however, she did explain that she had eight mouths to feed and not the best selection of food to do it with.
 
Sometimes, when the hobos saw the food, they walked off,
leaving it for the family dog.

They were hungry, but not hungry enough to eat the same food that my family did.
We have a reference to something similar to this in today’s Gospel.

The Jews of Jesus’ time were, for the most part, spiritually hungry people. They devoured Jesus’ words and teaching,
even going physically hungry to do so.

On the other hand, the Gentiles of his time, especially the pagan Canaanites, had no spiritual hunger. They were perfectly satisfied with their age-old superstitions and
pagan worship.
Only a few Canaanites, like the woman in today’s Gospel,
hungered for more solid spiritual food.

Offering spiritual food to the Canaanites was the equivalent of giving physical food to those few hobos who took one look at the food and then walked away, leaving it.
J esus’ mission was to the spiritually hungry. It was to the people who were ready and eager to receive it. Specifically,
it was to the Jewish people, who were literally starving spiritually.

Later, the Gentile world would manifest a true spiritual hunger; and later Christians, like Saint Paul, would address their need.

And so, like my mother, whose first mission was to her family, Jesus’ first mission and priority was to the Jewish people.

It was to those who were spiritually hungry and ready to receive his teaching with an open mind and an open heart.
This brings us to the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel.

When Jesus saw her deep faith and how open to truth
her mind and heart were, he sowed a seed in the non-Jewish world that would eventually bear great fruit.

The aggressiveness of the Gentile woman contains an important truth about faith.

It teaches us that faith is not something passive. It is something active and aggressive.

It is acknowledging our need for God’s special help and making a nuisance of ourselves, as did the woman in today’s Gospel.

To appreciate what a nuisance she was, recall that the Canaanites were the traditional enemies of the Jews.

The woman did something  no Canaanite would ever do.

She came to an enemy for help. She did even more. She fell on her knees and begged for help.

In other words, today’s Gospel teaches us that faith involves aggressiveness.

It teaches us to do what Saint Ignatius of Loyola  recommended: work as if everything depends on us,
but pray and trust as if everything depends on God.

Let us put all this in a slightly different but related way.
God does not treat us like puppets. God treats us like partners.

We should not sit idly by and expect God to pull some strings
every time we or our world need special help in some area.
For example, if peace is to be restored among peoples,
we need to help make it happen.

We need to begin by fostering peace in our own homes and workplaces.

If the hungry are to be fed, we need to help feed them by using the talents and resources with which God has blessed us.

If the naked are to be clothed, we need to set up parish relief programs, to collect clothes and distribute them to areas and people who have a special need for help.

If our homes are to become Christian environments for raising our children, we must work together as a family
to make it happen.
Only when our ordinary efforts and resources fall short
should we reach out to God for extraordinary or special help.

And then we must do so with the same aggressive faith as did
the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel.

Let us close with a familiar prayer that sums up the spirit of today’s Gospel.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.