Gospel Meditation:
Encourage Deeper Understanding of Scripture
August 20, 2023

The suffering of a child symbolizes uniquely terrible
evil as well as despair about the future. This week’s
Gospel gives a “limit” case in which Jesus encoun-
ters this evil in the form of a mother with a suffering
daughter. What he does is stunning and massively
helpful for us if we bravely ponder the details.

The Canaanite woman comes to Jesus and begs his
mercy. “My daughter is tormented by a demon,” she
declares to him. Shockingly, he responds first with
silence, then with a dismissive comment, and only
then finally accedes to her third request. Is this simply
a lesson in perseverance in our petitions to God, who
is like a genie in a bottle? Does that justify the humili-
ation and pain this woman suffers? Is the Lord cruel?

I don’t think so. Notice how the encounter ends. She
compares herself to a dog at the table of a master. Je-
sus responds by praising her great faith and fulfills her
deep desire. Somehow this non-Israelite woman intu-
its that this harrowing situation is not dumb suffering.
She senses that the door of God’s family is, in Jesus,
being opened to her and her loved ones. She trusts she
is at the Lord’s table, and her desires will be fulfilled
and that all her sufferings — and her daughter’s, too
— will lead a great banquet. In our sufferings this
week, the Lord wants us to treat him less like a genie
in a bottle and more like the Master who has taken us
— lost little dogs that we are — into his home forev-
er. Trust that and keep praying in the face of evil.

Father John Mui