Have you had the experience of asking for something and hearing the words, “The answer is no, and don’t ask me again”? Impatience with the needs and wants of others is all too common among human beings. Not so with God. The Lord Jesus teaches us through his encounter with the Canaanite woman, in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter fifteen, verses twenty-one to twenty-eight, that we should ask, and ask, and ask again for what we need.
The woman’s daughter is possessed by a demon, hardly a minor problem. The first time she asks for healing, the Lord “did not answer her a word.” Was he refusing her petition? She would have been justified in thinking so. Then the disciples counsel Christ to send the woman away, and he says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; the chosen people must be first to respond to the Messiah. Bold, but also reverent, “she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ Christ reminds her that, because she is not a Jew, she can not be faithful to God’s law as revealed through Moses.
Unflatteringly, but truthfully, she is told that the fullness of grace in Christ, given to those outside of the covenant, would be as food from the table given to mere dogs. Rather than being discouraged, the woman is all the bolder, and gladly compares herself to the dogs that are blessed to be enriched by “the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” And finally, after three supplications, she hears the blessed words, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” The Catechism speaks about the boldness in prayer proper to sons and daughters of God.
“Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: ‘Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.’ (Mk 11:24) Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt; ‘all things are possible to him who believes.’ (Mk 9:23) Jesus is as saddened by the ‘lack of faith’ of his own neighbors and the ‘little faith’ of his own disciples (Mk 6:6) as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman.” (CCC 2610) We are children of God by baptism and the gift of faith. Let us pray with the perseverance and confidence proper to us as heirs to eternal life with Jesus Christ our Sovereign Lord -Fr. Cusick