5th Week, Thursday, Feb 13:
Genesis 2:18-25 / Mark 7:24-30
God makes a woman; Then God brought her to the man.
In the early 1980s, syndicated columnist Bob Greene cited a
study by an attorney, Michael Minton, on the monetary value of a wife’s
services. He began by listing the functions that almost every good mother
performs. Here are just a few that we rarely consider: chauffeur, family
counselor, dietician, public relations hostess, budget manager, interior
decorator.
After completing the list, Minton assigned an hourly rate to
each function. When he added up the values of the functions performed in one
week, he found that they totaled almost $800 a week. That’s roughly $40,000 a
year. Minton’s study gave a lot of husbands a renewed appreciation of their
wives.
***
How deeply do we appreciate our spouses? Our parents? “The
most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
Theodore Hesburgh
****
Why are men and women attracted to one another? Love is
stronger than death and stronger than the bonds with parents. They become one
chair, most in the chair of the child. Human beings are social, and need and
equal partner, created from near the heart of man, “flesh from my flesh and
bone from my bones.” And now the man can say “you, thou.”
Despised pagans too are offered salvation. The doctors of
the Law had called the region where Jesus worked this miracle a region of dogs.
God lifts up the lowly who believe. Grace is no exclusive privilege for God’s
people. The kingdom is also for pagans.
****
There are two words that can sound rather depressive and
discouraging at times. Those two words are NO and END. Putting it into a
sentence, we can say that a NO puts an END to further requests and shuts the
door for good ... almost. But the word END can also be an acronym for Effort
Never Dies and NO can also be an acronym for Next Opportunity.
The gospel passage of today initially seems to be rather
depressive and discouraging. It may also seem to make Jesus look rather cold as
He snubbed the Syrophoenician woman who came to Him and fell at His feet to beg
Him to cast out the devil out of her daughter. Of course, in the end, all ended
well as Jesus granted her request and He even cast out the devil just by the
power of His Word. But there are many spiritual lessons that we can learn from
here, and especially from the Syrophoenician woman. One of which is that a NO
from Jesus did not put an END to her hopes or discouraged her from making
another effort with her request.
For that woman, NO means Next Opportunity and END means
Effort Never Dies. In other words, she never gave up on Jesus and she remained
positive despite the initial rejection. May we learn this lesson from this
Syrophoenician woman and have faith in Jesus because there is NO END to His
love for us.
****
Encountering Christ:
1. Jesus
Could Not Escape Notice: Jesus initially tried to keep his mission somewhat
-key and hidden because he knew that some people would want to thwart it.
Still, those who were open and listening took notice, even non-Jews like this
Greek woman. She had a problem and knew where to go for a solution. She fell at
his feet and begged. Sometimes we can wonder where God’s presence is in the
world, and why some people can't ever find him. He is not actually distant at
all—he is very close and active, and those who have open, ready, and waiting
hearts know him.
2. The
Faith of a Pagan: This mother knew that she did not “deserve” to be in
the presence of Jesus, a powerful and famous rabbi, but she also knew that she
needed his intercession to fix this problem, so clearly beyond her. She had no
other option, no plan B. And, she would not take no for an answer. How many
times do we come to God only because we know it’s the “right” thing to do,
lacking true faith in God who loves us? Do we feel that we deserve Jesus’s attention
and help, or do we fall at his feet in our need?
3. Stubborn
Love: Jesus seemed to ignore and refuse this woman, yet she did not
back down. She was armed only with her need and her intense motherly heart. She
had just heard what Jesus could do. Jesus must have been so pleased to see her
total surrender, and how humbly she returned his apparent insults. As in so
many other places in the Gospels, Jesus shows us that he is always willing to
act in the lives of those with faith in him.
Conversing with Christ: Jesus, the example of
this woman challenges me. I have been taught to be resourceful, independent,
and strong in the face of trials or difficulties, to find solutions, and to fix
problems myself. Yet, this woman let all that go and she ran to you. She knew
her limits and let you be God in her life. Help me to surrender to that depth.
Help me to bring to you all the aspects of my life that I pretend to have under
control. I trust you to take care of everything.
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will
surrender one thing to you. I will put total faith and trust in you to provide
for me in your goodness and mercy.
For Further Reflection: Let prayer be our most
delightful occupation; let prayer be the exercise of our whole life. And when
we are asking for particular graces, let us always pray for the grace to
continue to pray for the future; because if we leave off praying we shall be
lost (St. Alphonsus de Liguori).
****
Opening Prayer
Father of all, long ago you chose the people of Israel to make your name known to all nations. Your Son Jesus Christ, made it clear that forgiveness and life are the share of all who believe in him. Make your Church truly a place of encounter for all those who grope for you, that all obstacles and barriers may be removed and that the riches of all nations and cultures may reveal a thousand faces of the love you show us in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
***
Saint Catherine dei Ricci
Feast day February 13
We are curious about mystics who experience ecstasies and
visions. But we tend to regard them as psychologically unbalanced persons.
However, when we get to know a genuine mystic like St. Catherine dei Ricci we
must abandon our stereotypical view.
Catherine was a very competent woman who trained nuns and
governed a convent for many years. She taught and advised religious and laity
with obvious wisdom. She also delighted in nursing the sick. Her contemporaries
and modern scholars alike judge that she was psychologically healthy. And
Catherine received some most unusual mystical phenomena, including the
stigmata.
At age 13, Catherine entered the Dominican convent at Prato,
Italy. As a young nun she became mistress of novices and at 30 she was elected
prioress for life. She became famous for her sound teaching, much of which she
communicated in letters to nuns, priests, and laity.
For 12 years, from 1542 to 1554, Catherine received an
extraordinary ecstasy. From noon on Thursdays through 4 p.m. on Fridays, she
experienced in a trance the events of Christ’s passion. Although unconscious,
her bodily movements coincided with his—she stood solemnly at the scourging,
bowed to be crowned with thorns, extended her arms to be nailed to the cross,
and so on. The stigmata, the imprints of Christ’s wounds, also marked her body.
Inconvenienced and embarrassed by these phenomena, Catherine said that they
came—uninvited—from God. In 1554 she and her nuns prayed that the ecstasies
would cease, and they did.
Catherine died in 1590 after patiently suffering a long illness. The church canonized her not because of her mystical experiences but for her heroic virtue and perfect union with Christ
