Part 1 can be read here: Morning of Reflection - Part 1.
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OK, Ministers of Healing, if you really want to learn what your ministry is all about, the best place to turn is to our four Gospels - wonderful books filled with God's Healing Presence.
Because there are so many, we don't have time to examine all the healings described by the four evangelists. And so I've just chosen one, trusting that the Holy Spirit will help us recognize its relevance to our ministry.
In fact, I'll confess that when I was led to this passage, at first I couldn't see any direct connection to our ministry. But in prayer the Holy Spirit continued to tell me: this is the passage; this is the one; this is the healing I want you to share. So I said, okay. He really doesn't like it when I argue with Him.
With that, let's turn to Chapter 15 of Matthew's Gospel. And there we find Jesus doing something that most Jews would never do. He and his disciples left Gennesaret in Israel and walked about 30 miles to the coast, toward the cities of Tyre and Sidon, two Canaanite cites. -- two Gentile cities, two pagan cities. And while He was there, Jesus actually interacted with these pagans.
Why did He go there? Well, the Pharisees and those who were plotting against Him had become more aggressive and He knew it was not yet His time. So He probably decided to leave for a while. But, perhaps more importantly, He leaves the land of Israel and enters the land of the despised Canaanites to instruct the Apostles and give them a taste of what they will be called to do.
Listen to what happened...
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And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon."
But he did not answer her a word.
And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me."
And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to little dogs."
She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the little crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. [Mt 15:21-28]
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Many Christians, when they hear this Gospel passage, become almost fixated on Jesus' language, astonished that He would say what He reportedly said to this poor woman. Did He actually call her a little dog? That certainly doesn't seem very charitable, does it - not very Jesus-like?
About 25 years ago, during my five years of diaconate formation, I occasionally spent some time chatting with a rabbi about spiritual things. We usually talked about the Old Testament, but he was remarkably knowledgeable about the New Testament, especially the four Gospels.
I can't recall how it came up, but one afternoon I mentioned this particular passage and I guess my feelings showed, because he just laughed and said, "Amazing! You Christians are a lot harder on Jesus than we Jews."
When I asked him to explain himself, he said, "Well, that line about it not being right 'to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs' is just a another Hebrew and Aramaic expression, an idiom, a common phrase in those days. It's really no different than you or I saying 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks.' And who today would be insulted by that? No one. Everyone knows it's just an expression. In fact most people would probably laugh at it, just as the woman did when she gave her witty response."
So...the rabbi came to the rescue. It seemed reasonable. After all, Jesus' words really didn't bother her as much as they bothered me.
It helped...sort of. But even then, that Jesus would seemingly insult a mother who came to Him for help...it continued to trouble me.
I recall one homilist saying that Jesus was simply testing the woman, seeing how she would react to the insult. In other words, was her faith stronger than her pride? Was her love for her afflicted daughter greater than her love for herself? Sort of a love-for-another vs. self-image sort of thing. I never really liked that explanation, as if Jesus were playing minds games with her.
Another commentator remarked that Jesus softened the common Jewish term for Gentiles, by calling her a "little" dog.
Okay, I suppose that's better, but I was still somewhat frustrated by it all.
So I just decided to ignore it and focus instead on the reality of the passage: the interaction between Jesus and this woman and the healing of her daughter.
First of all, she was a remarkable woman. Although a Canaanite, a pagan, she sought Jesus out...which tells us something, that the Holy Spirit already moved within her, that He had entered this pagan heart.
Approaching Jesus, she pleaded with Him, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David..." Like Bartimaeus, the blind beggar of Jericho, she called Him by His Messianic title, "Lord, Son of David."
And for whom did she plead? Not for herself, but for her afflicted daughter.
On the surface it seemed to be the kind of plea to which Jesus would normally respond. But then everything seemed to go wrong for her, didn't it?
Of course the disciples were upset with her, but that was nothing new. So often they seemed upset with anyone who approached Jesus, especially those they didn't approve of. And they certainly wouldn't approve of a Canaanite, and a woman, approaching Jesus. So they plead with Jesus, "Send her away."
But He didn't send her away, did He? Recognizing this, she came to Him, knelt at His feet, and once again begged for His help. And so began this brief, but strange, dialog between the two.
It's a dialog about little dogs and little crumbs, about Jews and Gentiles, about humility and faith, about mothers and daughters and healing - all packed into a couple of sentences.
At first Jesus rejected her request, using those seemingly insulting words. But after this apparent rejection and being called a "little dog" did she just go away, and withdraw in silence?
Not at all. No she did something rather extraordinary. She didn't argue with Jesus, but agreed with Him - "Yes, Lord..." I suppose I am a little dog - but she agreed in a most unique and creative way. What a comeback!
"Yes, Lord; yet even little dogs eat the little crumbs that fall from the master's table" [Mt 5:27].
One gets the impression that she became the teacher, that she reminded Jesus of something very basic, something that had maybe slipped His mind.
But that's only an impression, and a false one, because everything Jesus did was in obedience to the Father's will and to fulfill His plan. Here I'm reminded of St. Paul's wonderful words to the Romans:
"Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy" [Rom 15:8-9].Yes, indeed, Jesus became a servant so the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. And isn't this exactly what the Canaanite woman did? Note, too, that throughout this encounter she called Jesus, "Kyrie" or Lord. Indeed, she used the title four times.
By fretting so much about our Lord's language we overlook perhaps the key element of this encounter. We overlook the woman's remarkable humility, a humility displayed to us thanks to those words of Jesus. In a sense she proclaims to Him that she is happily nothing more than a stray dog in search of a master, in search of her Lord.
Like all who come to Jesus, she comes filled with hope. It is that hope, bathed in her humility that drives her faith. Hope and humility - that's the recipe for the reception of the gift of faith.
The hopeful and the humble - these are the faithful ones.
Who are the faithless? The fearful, the proud and the despairing.
And it is her faith that tells her something wonderful: Jesus has come to save. He has come to save, not just His own people, "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," but everyone. He has come to save her, her daughter, her people.
This woman recognized a divine truth that even the Apostles had yet to understand:
Jesus wants nothing more than to be found out, to be seen as the merciful Savior. He wants us to find Him out one at a time, individually in our lives.She understands that to be overtaken, to be comprehended, to be sheltered, she must ultimately allow herself to be defeated by Jesus.
She submits, she adores, she is accepted. You can almost hear her, can't you?
You are the loving Lord of all, of past, present and future, of the high and the low, of the accepted and rejected, of the well-fed sheep and the scrawny little dogs, of the chosen Jews and the pagans who await you...the Lord of every needy person who seeks you.Driven by hope, filled with faith, she is moved to love. And it's a totally selfless love. In her deep humility she takes possession of her new name, her new title, for she is happily the Lord's little dog. Happy to reside in her Master's house, happy to eat the little crumbs that fall from His table.
And what are those little crumbs but a foreshadowing of the heavenly crumbs, the bread of angels that comes to us from the Lord's table? It is in the Church, at the Eucharistic table, where Christ's mercy forever rains down these crumbs of life.
Brothers and sisters, when you take the Eucharist, the Bread of Life, to someone who can't attend Mass, you become everything to that person, just as Jesus became everything to that Canaanite woman, who awaited those crumbs. For you are the Church, sent out to take Jesus Christ to those who await Him, to those begging on their knees for His healing mercy.
You hold Him in your hands and you say, "Here He is. Here is Jesus, the one who has come to save you, the one who loves you, even in your sinfulness, the one who heals..."Take and eat the Bread of Life, of eternal life, the crumbs that fall down from heaven itself."
This is what the Church does, for we are a Eucharistic Church. This is what you do.
How did the Fathers of Vatican II put it? The Eucharist is the "source and summit of the Christian life." The source and summit, the beginning the end - yes, the Eucharist is everything.
How fitting that, before the final blessing at Mass, you are called forward to receive the Lord's Eucharistic Presence at the foot of His altar. And then, after receiving that blessing, you hear the words of dismissal.
Those of you who've been around a while, do you remember the Latin words, the words of dismissal?
"Ite, missa est!"
"Ite!" It means go forth, depart. And "missa est" - It is sent. What is sent? The Church is sent. You and I are sent. We are all sent to carry Jesus Christ into the world.
As Jesus manifested His Healing Presence in the land of Canaan, so too are you called to do the same in Central Florida. Just as thousands of others like you carry Jesus throughout the word to those who seek His Presence, to those who beg for His mercy.
But we're not yet finished with our Gospel passage.
The healing itself was a little different, wasn't it? Mark, when he described this encounter, tells us that the woman returned home to find her daughter healed. Matthew simply tells us she was healed instantly.
It was one of those long-range healings, not unlike the healing of the Centurion's servant, something we are reminded of at every Mass.
"Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed" [Mt 8:8].Jesus, moved by the faith of the Canaanite woman, heals her daughter from afar, and gives us a lesson on the power of healing prayer.
You don't have to be there!
That's right, you don't have to be there because you don't do the healing. That's God's job. Our job is one of faithful and prayerful intercession.
Interestingly, this Canaanite woman, this Gentile, this pagan, apparently knew this as well. She never demanded, or even asked, that Jesus follow her home to lay hands on and pray over her daughter. No, her faith is so great she merely falls at Jesus feet and begs for healing. She tells Him her need and lets Him do the rest.
Now I want you to think about something. As I mentioned in our first session, too often we take a rather confined view of our ministries. We place personal limits on what we do and whom we serve.
But there's another psychological limit that artificially restricts our ministry - a temporal limit. In other words, I do my ministry on Wednesday morning after Mass when I go to the nursing home...then I go play golf, or mahjong, or pickelball. Now, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with any of those activities. Not at all. I'm only suggesting that we mustn't compartmentalize our ministry, thinking of it as something we do only during a few rather restrictive hours.
Ministry is a calling, not a job. Yes, indeed, ministry is a 7 x 24 calling. To think otherwise is to miss opportunities for evangelization, which is the Church's primary activity - for that's what your calling is, a call to evangelize.
And secondly, out of this Gospel passage we're shown the importance of intercessory prayer. Are those you serve included as a regular part of your prayer life? Do you pray for them and for their families daily? This, too, is part of the ministry to which you've been called.
This Healing Ministry is a ministry of shared lives - a sharing, a mingling of your life and the lives of those you serve. Think about it. For many you are the only interaction they have with the Church. As I said earlier, you are the Church to them.
What does the Church do? It brings Jesus Christ, the Word of God, to the world - the revealed Word of God in Scripture and the Incarnate Word of God in the Eucharist. And this is exactly what you do. Just think of the responsibility to which this leads.
And maybe I'll let you do just that as you get together in your groups and consider a few more questions:
1. How can I better address the healing needs of those I serve?
2.What can I do to help those I serve better understand the Presence of God in Word and Eucharist?
3. What have I done to show those I serve that, like Jesus, I am interested in their every need?
4. What can I do to make the Church more present in the lives of those I serve?
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