Word to the Wise
Thursday, February 11, 2010 - Our Lady of Lourdes
[1 Kings 11:4-13 and Mark 7:24-30]"Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps." Then he said to her, "For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter."
This incident is one that serves as a strong reminder to us about meeting those who are of other faith traditions that may not even include a mention of Jesus as being important at all. The Syro-Phoenician woman would be from a pagan culture - a Canaanite culture - with agricultural deities. Yet, she intuits in her desperation to help her daughter, that Jesus can help in some way. He challenges her because his primary mission is to the Jews, but she responds that others may benefit from him as well. Jesus, in turn, heals her daughter without even seeing the child! Our faith is precious and should be shared. We don't know always, however, whom we will share it with in advance! We do have to discern the openness and hope of those who come to us, but when that is clear, our duty is clear too. We should help in any way that we can. We leave the rest to God. We don't know what happened to the lady once she went home other than that her daughter was healed. That says everything. On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I am reminded of the scene that I personally witnessed of the sick and infirm in their wheelchairs and the hope they had in coming to that site. They don't have to be Catholic to be there. They just need healing. AMEN
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