Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
«Woman, how great is your faith!»
Today, we often hear the expression “faith has been lost”, and the same people who ask our communities the baptism of their children or the catechesis for their infants or the sacrament of marriage, say it. These words depict the world in a negative way while trying to convince us bygone times were better and that we are now at the end of an stage where there is nothing left for us to say or to do. Evidently, these are basically young people who, in its majority, watch rather sadly how the world has changed from their parents' times, who used to live perhaps a more popular faith, which they have not known how to adapt to. This experience leaves them unsatisfied and without any capacity of reaction when, in fact, they might find themselves at the gates of a new stage they could very well take advantage of.
This passage of the Gospel draws the attention to that Canaanite mother that demands grace for her daughter by recognizing in Jesus the Son of David: «Lord, Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is tormented by a demon» (Mt 15:22). The Master is surprised: «Woman, how great is your faith!” and He can do nothing but to act in favour of those persons: «Let it be as you wish» (Mt 15:28), although this does not seem to fall within his schedule. However, God's grace is manifested in human realities.
Faith is not a privilege of a few, nor is it the property of those who thing they are so good or of those who have ever been good, and have this social or ecclesial label. God's action precedes any Church's action and the Holy Spirit is already acting upon persons we would have never suspected could bring us a message from God, a request in favour of the needy. St. Leo says: «My beloved, the virtue and wisdom of Christian faith are our love of God and of our neighbour: it does not miss any obligation to any pious works procuring to render God worship due to him and to help our brethren».