Older Catholics will remember how as kids, we were not allowed to associate with Protestants. Catholics who fell in love with Protestants could be married by the Church, but only in the rectory, not in the church building. We could not set foot in a Protestant church even for a wedding or funeral. All this was 400-plus years after the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517! Jesus’ Jewish religion believed that God offered salvation first to the Jews. Non-Jews could sometimes be welcomed into the Jewish faith as a sign that Israel was living up to its call to be a “light to the Nations” (Is 42:6; 49:6). God would bring foreigners to his holy mountain to join in the worship there (Is 57:9), but gentiles approached God through Israel. Thus, Jews of Jesus’ day did not easily approach non-Jews, and vice versa. So the Gospel story today is unusual. In it, a non-Jewish Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and asks that he cure her sick daughter. Notice that the woman has put her faith in someone she was not even supposed to approach, much less believe in. At first, Jesus responds to her as a typical Jew would, for Jesus was an educated Jew, well versed in Hebrew Scripture and rabbinical teaching. But when she pointed out the flaw in his thinking, Jesus changed his response. Because he encountered the woman’s wisdom, and was attentive to the voice of God in his soul, he learned something. Scripture scholars and theologians have commented that this passage shows Jesus’ humanness, “one like us except for sin,” and, like us, needing age and experience to grow in wisdom and faith. Faith is more than beliefs, but the belief part of faith must change with the passage of time and through advances in human understanding. Perhaps you can remember times when your own understandings about your Catholic faith have changed, leading to good things for you and others. Give thanks for those times today!
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
The post August 16, 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Change: a Sunday Scriptures blog first appeared on Sisters of the Precious Blood.