May the Lord grant you peace, grace, and health in the Holy Spirit.
It is 10th February 2022. We reflect on 1 King 11:4-13 / Mark 7:24-30. We celebrate the memorial of St. Scholastica, the twin sister of St. Benedict. St. Gregory beautifully describes their spiritual communion, “so death did not separate the bodies of these two, whose minds had ever been united in the Lord.”
Faith never fumbles; pleasure remains pretentious always.
“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mk.7:28).
By calling the gentile woman a dog, Jesus was not rude, but He used a culturally loaded word to provoke her. It is a kind of bargaining between God and man just like in the story of Abraham who bargained with God to save more people in Sodom.
Fake humility and innocence would not take us even near God. Just like this woman in the Gospel, we need to retort in a way to win the heart of Jesus. In the end, her faith, persistence, sincerity, and conviction won over the stance of Jesus. Jesus, the Wisdom of the Father had an open and frank relationship with women and respected them as opposed to the king Solomon who had innumerable wives misleading relationships with women. When pride and pleasure get into the minds, we dedicate chambers of unfaithfulness and lies, and we easily forget the promises we have made to God.
Taking no for an answer is the persistence of the Gentile woman. Even Jesus will not refuse what we ask for in faith.
Today we are presented with a humble gentile woman and her faith in Jesus versus a proud and preoccupied king of Israel who was unfaithful to the Lord who appeared to him more than once and granted him the wisdom he pleaded for.
Leaning on human relationships and trusting over human comforts inappropriately could easily make us disconnect our umbilical connections with God.
Who am I?
God is not looking for a Solomon who deviated his mind with pleasures but for a believer like a woman in the Gospel, who seeks God in all odds of life.
King Solomon abandoned his faith in God while the gentile woman accepted faith in humility.
Faith grants more than we bargained for. The impossible becomes possible; the unbelief dissolves in belief; the invisible immerses in the visible presence of Jesus.
Does our relationship with others take us away from God or near to God? who is that someone taking us away from God? May God bless you.