REFLECTIONS TODAY
The kosher laws of the Jews that mark what is “clean” and “unclean” did not just cover food; the Jews also had nothing to do with “unclean people”—the pagans around them and the schismatic Samaritans whom they looked down as only half-Jews. These people were not allowed to enter the house of the Jews and the Temple in Jerusalem.
In the Gospel, the woman seeking to see Jesus has two obstacles before her: she is only a woman, not permitted in the presence of a rabbi or teacher; she is also a Syrophoenician, a pagan by birth, hence a stranger. This divide is expressed by a Samaritan woman from whom Jesus asks for a drink, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jn 4:9).
Jesus further reminds the pagan woman of her lowly status by referring to her kind as “dogs” (v 27), unfit to share the benefits of the children, the Israelites. But the woman’s love for her daughter, in the words of St. Paul, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7).
Surely, Jesus, who has declared all things clean, cannot be unmoved by the humility and the faith and confidence in him of the woman. He gives her not just the “scraps” (v 28) but the gift of salvation that he brings—the healing of her daughter and the right of being considered a child of the one true God.
First Reading • Gn 2:18-25
The Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man. So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.
Responsorial Psalm • Ps 128
“Bless are those who fear the Lord.”
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 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.