Roman Rite – XX Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A – August 16, 2026
Is 56:1.6-7; Ps 66; Rom 11:13-15:29-32; Mt 15:21-28
Ambrosian Rite – X Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 8:15-30; Ps 47; 1 Cor 3:10-17; Mk 12:41-44
1) Faith abolishes distances.
In the aftermath of the Feast of the Assumption, in which the protagonist is Our Lady, this year this Sunday liturgy offers to our meditation the figure of another woman as protagonist with Christ of a miracle. She is from Canaan, therefore for the Jews including Jesus, she is a foreigner.
The distance from Christ on the part of the Canaanite woman was external. She had to make a long journey to overcome the centuries of paganism that objectively separated her from salvation. However, between us baptized and the Lord there is often an internal distance. It is the barrier of our spiritual laziness and mediocrity that prevents any contact. If only we could not shut ourselves away in times of difficulty in life but continue to ask, seek and beg God, we would have the opportunity to have our questions answered and to get what serves the true good of ourselves and those we love
It happened to the Canaanite. The signs that accompanied Jesus drove her to Him. She learned about Jesus, she listened to the announcement that gives faith, because faith comes from preaching (Rom 10:17), she felt her heart pierced, and she ran to the source of Life. A pagan woman embarks on a journey of salvation driven by listening to an announcement and by the desire to give health back to her child. It is the principle of the transition from slavery to freedom. The occasion made her bold. Love for her daughter, until then impotent, met the Love which is Life, Health and Salvation. This mother has traveled a long way, humiliating herself between the contempt of the “children” of Israel and the shameful infirmity of her daughter. She has seen that her love as a mother is incapable of helping, of giving meaning to existence. There is no greater suffering than a mother's love strangled in the helplessness of becoming salvation for her children.
This woman, who asked for the miracle of healing for her daughter, had enormous courage, because she knew that being a woman and a foreigner was a major obstacle to accepting her request for mercy.
She was a woman and this for the ancients, but not for the Bible, was “a necessary evil”. Moreover, she was not Jewish, she was Canaanite, of the lineage of Ham, the son who had an attitude of contempt towards his father Noah and was cursed by him[1]
For Jesus, the fact that the Canaanite woman was a woman was not an objection, but a blessing. As it was from the beginning, and continues to be, womanhood is a divine blessing, so He “was born of Woman (Gal 4:4,). The second objection is dissolved by Christ like snow in the sun: He asks, then as now, for faith.
It is no coincidence that in the New Testament faith comes first from women: the Virgin Mary - who is “type”[2] of faith par excellence, her cousin Elizabeth, the prophetess Anna, the disciples - in particular Mary Magdalene - who follow Jesus wherever he goes, the women met by St. Paul (cf. Rom16), Lydia at Philippi, to whom the Lord opened his heart to the Gospel brought by the Apostles (cf. Acts 16:14) and the “many women and not a few men” (Acts 17:12) of Thessalonica, as well as Damarides, the Athenian woman who believed after Paul's speech at the Areopagus (Acts17:34), and Priscilla with her husband Aquila in Corinth (Acts 18:2).
This “blessed” Canaanite woman goes to meet Jesus and cries out to Him “Have pity on me” (Mt 15, 22). Literally translating, this prayer sounds like this: “Have pity on me, Lord, son of David.” However, it almost seems that the Messiah is not moved by this cry and gives a harsh response, at least on the surface, comparing this woman and her demon-possessed daughter to the “little dogs”. The Canaanite acknowledges her situation of misery and alienation, but maternal love pushes her and she dares an intelligent and faith-filled response, which can be translated as follows: “But yes, Lord. In fact, even little dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their owners' tables”, therefore even those who are considered as dogs have “the right” to “their owners' bread”.
The Canaanite passed the exam, offering Christ the confession that comes from her heart as a mother. Jesus' heart was waiting for this, and he addresses the Canaanite with the noble title of “Woman (= Lady)”.
By her faith this woman recovered her dignity as daughter of God in the Son of God, and, by virtue of her faith, this dignity was communicated to the fruit of her womb: her daughter was freed from the devil who disfigured her image and likeness.
Let us ask the Lord for this same faith and remember that women are considered a blessing by the Lord. In commentary on this sentence, I quote what St. John Paul II wrote in his Letter to Women:
“The Church "desires to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the 'mystery of woman' and for every woman-for all that constitutes the eternal measure of her feminine dignity, for the 'great works of God', which throughout human history have been accomplished in and through her" (No. 31).This word of thanks to the Lord for his mysterious plan regarding the vocation and mission of women in the world is at the same time a concrete and direct word of thanks to women, to every woman, for all that they represent in the life of humanity.
Thank you, women who are mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique experience of joy and travail. This experience makes you become God's own smile upon the newborn child, the one who guides your child's first steps, who helps it to grow, and who is the anchor as the child makes its way along the journey of life.
Thank you, women who are wives! You irrevocably join your future to that of your husbands, in a relationship of mutual giving, at the service of love and life.
Thank you, women who are daughters and women who are sisters! Into the heart of the family, and then of all society, you bring the richness of your sensitivity, your intuitiveness, your generosity and fidelity.
Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of "mystery", to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.
Thank you, consecrated women! Following the example of the greatest of women, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, you open yourselves with obedience and fidelity to the gift of God's love. You help the Church and all mankind to experience a "spousal" relationship to God, one which magnificently expresses the fellowship which God wishes to establish with his creatures.
(In this respect it is useful for the consecrated Virgins in the world to constantly meditate on the answers they gave to the Bishop during the rite of consecration: ‘Do you want to persevere all your life in the decision of consecrated virginity in the service of the Lord and His Church?’ - ‘Yes, we want that.’ ‘Do you want to follow Christ according to the Gospel in such a way that your life appears as a testimony of love and a sign of the Kingdom to come?’ – ‘Yes, we want that’. ‘Do you want to be consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High God, and recognize him as your husband?’ – ‘Yes, we want it’. Then the Bishop and the Assembly say: ‘Let us give thanks to God’ – Ritual of the Consecration of Virgins, No. 17).
Thank you, every woman, for the simple fact of being a woman! Through insight, which is so much a part of your womanhood, you enrich the world's understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic. […] May Mary, Queen of Love, watch over women and their mission in service of humanity, of peace, of the spread of God's Kingdom!” (LETTER OF POPE John PAUL II TO WOMEN, 1995).
[1] As emerges, for example, from this quote: “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves
he be to his brothers.” He also said: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! Let Canaan be his slave.”
(Gen 9:25-27). This curse was confirmed throughout time, as we read, for example, in Deuteronomy 7:2, where it is written not to be merciful towards the Canaanites.
[2] Our Lady is the highest example of faith and humility, virtues that must characterize our approach to the Mystery of the Incarnation.
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