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Reflection:
She was a lady like many – the woman of the Gospel today. She would fight for her child. So she took on Jesus, the best known religious figure around. Like someone taking on the Taoiseach over a medical card for a chronically ill child, and not letting him off the hook.
Jesus was testing her. He saw faith, but he wanted everyone else to see it. So he told her she didn’t fit into the local religious sphere because she was foreigner, an asylum seeker or a refugee. Or a lone mother who had a bad name. She knew she fitted into the heart of Jesus simply because she was the mother of a sick child. Jesus cured her child and praised her faith.
She is another of the unnamed ones of the Gospel. Like the woman of Samaria, the rich young man, the thief on Calvary – she is herself, and she is all of us. She is everyone, man and woman, of faith.
Faith in a surprising God who in Jesus his Son never says no to goodness. Faith that keeps us energetic and alive, not tired, in soul as well as body.
Lord, I believe, strengthen my faith.
Donal Neary SJ