Daily Reading

First Reading

Isaiah 56:1, 6-7

Thus says the Lord:
    Maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come,
    and my deliverance be revealed.
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,
    and hold fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
    for all peoples.

Psalm

Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8

That your way may be known upon earth,
    your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
    let all the peoples praise you.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
    let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has yielded its increase;
    God, our God, has blessed us.

Second Reading

Romans 11:13-15, 29-32

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry in order to make my own people jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead!
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Gospel Reading

Matthew 15:21-28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting 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.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus praises the faith of the Canaanite woman who persisted in her prayer for her daughter.

St. Augustine offers a perspective on petitionary prayer. God wants us to ask persistently—not in order that he might be changed but that we might be changed. Through the initial refusal to give us what we want, God compels our hearts to expand in order to receive adequately what he wants to give. 

In the very process of hungering and thirsting for certain goods, we make ourselves worthy vessels. It is not as though, in petitioning God, we are approaching a stubborn pasha or big city boss who we hope might be persuaded by our persistence. Rather, it is God who works a sort of spiritual alchemy in us by forcing us to wait. 

In his treatment of the Lord’s Prayer, Thomas Aquinas tells us, very much in the spirit of Augustine, that the initial petition of the Our Father, “hallowed be thy name,” is not asking for something to change in God, for God’s name is always holy; rather, it is asking that God might work a change in us so that we hallow God above all things.