The Gospel account of the Canaanite woman in Mt 15:21-28 gives us hope that we can actually impress Jesus and do something to merit His praise and commendation.
Jesus is not impressed with the fact that she is a Gentile woman who is courageous enough to come into Jewish territory to ask Him, a Jew, to deliver her daughter from a demon. He is also not impressed with what she says to Him, calling Him “Lord,” and even giving Him the messianic title, “Son of David.” He is not impressed with how, despite the rebuke of the disciples, “Send her away, she keeps calling out after us,” she still reverences Him, “But the woman came and did Him homage.” Neither her status, nor her origin, nor her words, nor her reverent actions visibly impressed Jesus.
It was her humble perseverance in asking Him that impressed Jesus the most. In response to Jesus’ initial dismissive response to her request, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs, ” she responded with a truly self-effacing humble persistence, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Her response impressed Jesus so much and merited Him praising her, “O woman, great is your faith.” It also merited her heart’s desire, “Let it be done for you as you wish.”
Such humble perseverance means doing the inspired good even when there are no visible results, when we do not have good feelings, when we are not appreciated by others, and when we face ridicules and insurmountable struggles. It means doing the good and calling out to Jesus even when we feel as if He is uncaring, completed detached, and distant from us. It means rising up from our humiliating defeats and failures and recommitting ourselves to Him.
St. Paul reminds the Roman Christians that it is by the gift of divine mercy that they are God’s people in Christ, “You have received mercy because of their (Jew’s) disobedience.” They are to humbly persevere in this calling because God does not take back His election and gifts, “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” It is also through our humble perseverance that God’s mercy will flow to all persons, Jews and Gentiles alike, “For God delivered all to disobedience that He might have mercy upon all.”
It is the mercy of God that continuously calls us and offers us gifts, inspires us to do good unceasingly, brings us to heaven, and then rewards us for making use of these gifts to the very end. If this mercy of God never ceases, why then do we fail to persevere, ceasing to do the good that He inspires in us? Why do we stop praying to Him, repenting of our sins, striving for greater holiness, witnessing to Him, serving others selflessly, worshipping Him, etc.? It is our faithful response to the mercy of God to the very end that impresses Jesus. We cannot hope to enter into His kingdom if we have all things but lack this perseverance, “Only those who persevere to the end will be saved.”(Mt 24:13)
The Canaanite woman shows us two ways in which we can cultivate this humble perseverance. The first step is to trust in the abundance goodness of God and not in ourselves. She has no sense of entitlement or any claim to personal goodness that would warrant Jesus’ favorable response to her prayer. She approached Him perseveringly based on His own goodness alone. We too must approach Jesus with this conviction that He alone is good, He alone is the source of all good that we need, and He alone will reward us for all good we do for His sake. We cannot persevere when we operate out of a sense of entitlement based on our own goodness.
The second step is to let love reign in our hearts. This woman persevered in asking because she was asking for the sake of her daughter whom she loved so much to the point of identifying with her, “Lord, please help me.” We cannot persevere in any true good when our hearts are lacking in real love for God and for others.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are seeing today many signs of failures in many vocations in the Church today. We have many departures from the priesthood and consecrated life, infidelity to the marriage commitment between spouses and breakdown of many marriages, violation of the vows and promises of clerical celibacy, and the abandonment of the Catholic faith by thousands. I was shocked to hear Cardinal Christoph Schonborn state that a whopping 67,583 people officially left the Church in Austria in 2019, while 58,807 had left in 2018.
Surely there are so many valid reasons why all these sad things happen and weaken the witness of the Church. But it also indicates a failure in humble perseverance in our vocations. We seem to have lost the sense of divine mercy that has brought us into the fullness of the faith in the Catholic Church, called us to our holy vocations, and sustained us with divine gifts. Maybe we have failed to let love for others like the unborn infants prevail in our hearts. Maybe we have doubted the goodness of God or His laws for us and have chosen to just do our own thing and make up our own rules. Maybe we need to be reminded that our eternal destiny depends on our humble perseverance in our God-given vocations to the very end.
Jesus is not so impressed with our status or vocations in life. He is not impressed with the words that we say to Him in moments of fervor. He is not impressed with the praise we give Him when we feel His loving presence so close to us. He is definitively not impressed when we worship Him because we feel good or we see visible results. It is nothing but our humble perseverance in doing these things that impresses Him, scares the heck out of the devil and his demons, and opens the gates of heaven for us.
Jesus makes His unrelenting mercy present to us as He makes a gift of Himself in this Eucharist. He will never stop inspiring us to do good for His sake. By the grace of this Eucharist, let us humbly persevere to the end so that we will earn His eternal praise and commendation, “Great is your faith!” and also gain the greatest desire of our hearts – life with God in heaven for ever and ever.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
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Photo by Andrii Leonov on Unsplash
