Feb. 9, 2012 Thursday: 5th Week in Ordinary (B)

The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She replied and said to him,"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." (Mark 7:24-30)

 In this striking incident the Syrophoenician woman turns out to be a model of Christian faith. She is not the last person who has come to Jesus with an urgent petition, only to encounter what seems to be a brick wall! But she is neither discouraged nor disheartened by the apparent setback. She simply perseveres in intrepid confidence. Somehow what she has heard about Jesus has given her a profound intuition that he cannot be indifferent to her plea. So she refuses to take no for an answer—and her boldness is rewarded. The clear lesson in this story is that the Lord does hear our prayers, and even his apparent refusals are meant to awaken in us a yet deeper faith, which opens us to receive the gift that he has for us. Few sayings of Jesus are recorded more often than his reassurance that what we ask in prayer with faith we will receive.

Healy, Mary. Gospel of Mark, The (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) (p. 145).