Through the intercession of the Blessed Mother of God, let us too, ask the Holy Spirit to grant us the grace to realize ever more deeply, that far from receiving scraps from the table at this Holy Mass, we instead receive at the Altar of the Lord, the Lord Himself, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Let us become "puppies" before the Lord and humbly throw ourselves at His feet, and beg Him to bring us closer to Him through Holy Communion, even to a mystical union of perfect love and happiness with the living God.

Matthew 15, 21-28. Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. August 17th, 2014

This Gospel marks the only time that we know of that Jesus ever ventured outside of the Jewish territory. Perhaps, He may have needed time away from the leaders of the house of Israel who not only refused to see Him as the long awaited Messiah and deliverer of God’s chosen people but, who also refused to believe that He was the Son of God who became man-God Himself. Jesus earlier had sad that He had come to give His message only to the House of Israel, but by this venture into Gentile territory, he was pointing to his later commissioning of the disciples to preach the Gospel not only to the Jews, but also to the entire world.

So here is this pagan woman, a woman who is not only a gentile but also a Canaanite. Remember the Canaanites were ancient enemies of the Jews. Here Jesus encounters a gentile woman who gives us an example of humble, faithful and loving prayer before Lord. This woman knows that Jesus is a Jew and that she is gentile and even more an enemy of the Jews. Yet she has heard the wonders, the miracles of Jesus and she has a child who is in greet need; and mothers stop at nothing to help their children.

She is a mother in anguish because good mothers always suffer along with their children. She doesn’t care about herself; she only knows that this man may be able to help her child. She doesn’t care what others may say or even if she makes a fool out of herself. She throws herself at his feet like a beggar and begins to pray without ceasing for this Jewish man to help her child. She knows that He alone can help her, save her child, save Her.

The disciples themselves are ashamed at the way she is acting; they don’t want to be in this pagan territory in the first place, a territory full of sinners and enemies. But Jesus wishes to teach them compassion (not pity, but a willingness to suffer with) and so teach them true love of neighbor. Jesus wants them to intercede on her behalf by asking Him to help her, their “so called enemy.” But instead, they ask Him to send her away. However, even after their attempt to rid themselves of her, she for her part only persists more. Jesus is moved with pity for her and he says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.”

Now at first, this may sound like a cruel derogatory remark. But the opposite is the case, because Jesus is looking at the woman with eyes of compassion and with a warm smile on his face, which robbed the words of any insulting tone. The word dog that he uses here is not the word that religious leaders of the day used when they called the gentiles and Canaanites “dogs.” No, the word here is more like puppy.

In other words, Jesus is showing this sorrowful mother, that He doesn’t share in the hatred & lack of compassion (and really lack of justice, for Love of neighbor, is primarily a commitment to justice, and is the touchstone for faith and love of God.) of the religious leaders of the day. But even more, He is showing that not only He is the messiah, but that He is her Lord and God. He wants her to know that he has heard her humble, persistent plea and is ready to answer her faithful, childlike prayer. And she in return is filled with faith and understanding and responds to His love by calling Jesus, Lord, and saying with a trusting, childlike smile, “Even the puppies eat of the pieces which fall from their master’s table.”

This woman of great faith teaches us about the loving characteristics of prayer. She teaches us how we are to pray, what kind of disposition of the heart we must have when we pray. She teaches us that we, like her, must realize our unworthiness to approach Jesus with our prayer, that we must be humble before our Lord and become beggars, crying out, “Jesus Son of David have mercy on me, a great sinner who is unworthy to approach your table”. This is the beginning of prayer-humility--Humility that affects our actions, our demeanor, even our way of dress, especially at Holy Mass.

Humble Prayer starts with an act of adoration. Just like the woman, we realize the importance of prayer and we fall on our knees. We humble ourselves, physically and spiritually, body and soul, and make an act of faith & hope by showing God that we realize who He is and how much we need him, how we are completely dependent on God for everything, even to our very existence. We also recognize that we can’t even pray without the Help of His Spirit. And so, we call out to Him, “My God Creator of my soul, Father of my soul, I adore Thee and I Love Thee, Help me to adore Thee and Love Thee more.”

In our humble prayer, in acknowledgment of our poverty, we come face to face with the gentleness and compassion of Jesus Christ who smiles at us, like he did with the woman, and He lets us know that He Loves Us. He teaches us how to pray, trusting and knowing that we have a God who already knows what we need. Jesus teaches us, like the Samaritan woman, to always be persistent in our prayer and to have trust that He hear us and wants to answer our prayer, but that His answer must be given in His time and according to His Will. And we respond, “Lord, how could we possibly want anything but Your Holy Will, since you alone know what we really need, we beg you, give us only those things that will bring us closer to You.”

Jesus also teaches us, what his disciples in the Gospel missed. He wants us to know that we must pray with each other and for each other. Jesus is most pleased when we pray for others, especially before Him in the Holy Eucharist, which is the Sacrament of His love because It is He! This is the prayer that is the most fruitful. We should pray for those in our families, our friends and those who the Lord has brought into our life. However, we can’t stop there---WE should also, especially pray for our enemies. “What good is it, if you love only those you love you, even the pagans do as much?”

When we pray for others, as well as our self, prayer becomes part of our daily life by offering up our work and activity of the day, even our sufferings, as a prayer; we become willing to show true compassion which again means not pity but a willingness to suffer with and along side. We also, come to recognize the importance of prayer in community, prayer together as a parish family, praying for each other and for others outside our parish family. With this recognition we also see the extreme failure in charity and grave sinfulness of deliberately missing Holy Mass on Sundays, or arriving late or leaving early without a serious reason and not participating lovingly, fully and actively, with full heart, mind, soul and body and with all of our strength and will.

The Holy Mass is in fact the most perfect of all prayers. Without the Holy Mass no prayer would be worthy to come before God. The Holy Mass is the Most perfect of all prayers because it is the sacrificial prayer of Jesus to the Father on our behalf, the prayer of His self-offering to the Father for our salvation-it is the ultimate act of compassion.

Because Jesus is God, the Holy Mass is the prayer of God to God on behalf of poor little puppies’ like you and me. It is the Holy Mass that allows our prayer to ascend to the Father because the Mass makes it possible for you and me to come before Jesus, before His table, better yet His Sacred Altar. If we offer ourselves to Him, our whole heart, with trust, and receive him in faith, he perfects our love, our love for God and our love for neighbor for love of God…He makes our love sacrificial not emotional! At Holy Mass, in fact Jesus gives us His own Heart to love with….The Body of Christ.

I implore you to take a look at you prayer life. None of us can say that we pray enough, including me. Do you pray more than just when you are at Sunday Mass? Do you pray the Mass? Do you only pray when you need or want something? Do you pray for others, especially your enemies? Do you begin each prayer, like this woman of today’s Gospel, with a humble, childlike trust in God, pleading Him to answer your prayers according to His Will? Because that is what prayer really is, prayer is not begging God to change His Mind and Will to ours, but our prayer helps us to change our minds and our hearts to correspond to His Holy Will in love so we can become united to Him in Love. “

Prayer as a way of “accustoming” oneself to being with God brings into being men and women who are not motivated by selfishness, by the desire to possess or by the thirst for power, but by gratuitousness, by the desire to love, by the thirst to serve, in other words who are motivated by God; and only in this way is it possible to bring light to the darkness of the world” (Pope Emeritus Benedict. General Audience
Paul VI Hall, Vatican City
20 June 2012).

So let us all ask the Blessed Mother of God to teach us how to pray, so that we may conform ourselves more and more to the Will of God. “From Mary we learn graciousness and readiness to help, but we also learn humility and generosity in accepting God's will” (Pope Emeritus Benedict). In her school of prayer we will learn to pray for others in need, learn to serve them by helping them to find the healing that they so desperately are looking for-to find Christ Himself!

Through her intercession, let us too, ask the Holy Spirit to grant us the grace to realize ever more deeply, that far from receiving scraps from the table at this Holy Mass, we instead receive at the Altar of the Lord, the Lord Himself, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Let us become “puppies” before the Lord and humbly throw ourselves at His feet, and beg Him to bring us closer to Him through Holy Communion, even to a mystical union of perfect love and happiness with the living God. Then we can show true compassion to those we meet, even our enemies, becoming instruments of God’s mercy and love, leading those separated from God and His Love, to this same union of love with the Living God.

“O Jesus Son of David have mercy on me, a great sinner who is unworthy to approach your table. Let it be done unto me according to Thy Word! Amen.