One can tolerate humiliation when one is desperate or in view of a higher goal. We may not like, for example, to take the crowded Metro Rail Transit, but if that is the only way we can be on time for a very important appointment, we will brave the throng and the discomfort.
The Syrophoenician mother in the Gospel loves her daughter so much that she is willing to go through anything… like being humiliated by Jesus’ seeming “insensitivity” towards her, a non-Jew. The woman does not mind it at all: she does all she can, reasoning smartly and standing her ground, to convince Jesus to attend to her daughter, and so she gets what she wants. Such is this woman’s determination and wit that even Jesus is amazed at the way she responds and at her deep trust in his ability to exorcise her child.
We often forget that we are created in God’s image and likeness and wallow in this false sense of our being “only human” to keep stock of an easy excuse when we do wrong. But we are capable of deep faith and trust and can suffer beyond what we imagine.
Is our faith such as to make us willing to suffer anything if only to achieve our goal? Are we willing to do anything to get Jesus’ “attention”?
Gospel • MARK 7:24-30
Jesus went off to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord 2019,” ST. PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; Fax 632-895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.