Our loving Father in Heaven never intended us to be alone or lonely. He wills good in and for us. In today’s reading we learn that for many of us who follow His will to be married according to His design, then we are further graced to procreate and be thus fruitful. For others who are chosen to lead a single life, are likewise blessed and graced with beautiful companions on their pilgrim journey.
He loves us His children equally and unconditionally. Even those from another flock! Although not clearly seen based on our cultural differences, the exchange between Jesus and the woman was playful. Yes it must have been extremely difficult for the woman to even muster all the courage and strength to approach a Jew for help, still apart from desperation for her daughter’s well being; she could sense that Jesus was no ordinary Jew. She experienced first hand, being in His presence; the mercy and love of our ever loving God. She approached the throne of grace and received the divine grace of God upon her and her loved one. Amen
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First reading
Genesis 2:18-25
Man and wife become one body
The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.’ So from the soil the Lord God fashioned all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven. These he brought to the man to see what he would call them; each one was to bear the name the man would give it. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of heaven and all the wild beasts. But no helpmate suitable for man was found for him. So the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. The Lord God built the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. The man exclaimed:
‘This at last is bone from my bones,
and flesh from my flesh!
This is to be called woman,
for this was taken from man.’
This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body.
Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no shame in front of each other.
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Gospel
Mark 7:24-30
The astuteness of the Syro-Phoenician woman
Jesus left Gennesaret and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognised. A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet. Now the woman was a pagan, by birth a Syrophoenician, and she begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter. And he said to her, ‘The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.’ But she spoke up: ‘Ah yes, sir,’ she replied ‘but the house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps.’ And he said to her, ‘For saying this, you may go home happy: the devil has gone out of your daughter.’ So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.
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