It’s interesting sometimes to look at the details of the Gospel and dig deep to see what’s going on. One of the things about this morning that might be easy to miss is that Jesus isn’t in the gentile territory. Matthew places Him near the gentile border, but not quite in a gentile town.
Then Matthew uses a specific word found very seldom in the new testament. Matthew calls her a Canaanite woman. In the old testament, we find the Caananites to be treated as a sinful, godless race that embodies all that is wicked and wrong with the world. They are the enemy, the other, “them,” a race to be exterminated, not to be interacted with.
That makes the story of this woman’s faith even more vibrant! To come to Jesus, she had to leave her home and go into a foreign place. She had to come out of the life she was living, move away from that place, and go to the feet of Jesus. That alone is a big deal. How many of us have uprooted our lives and given up the comforts of home to travel into a hostile place for Jesus?
How great does our faith need to be for us to do the same? To step out into a hostile world, an environment that wants us to be gone, and to cling to Jesus? While you and I probably will not have to face martyrdom anytime soon, we do live in a world that seems increasingly hostile to faith, to holiness. The idea of self-discipline and control is often pushed to the side for a sappy “its all good, you do you” approach that gets us no closer to Jesus. Instead of leaving our comfort zone, we are encouraged to stay in it and focus primarily on ourselves.
This brings us to our Saint for today: Saint John Vianney, the patron Saint of Priests. In the hostile environment of a post-war, increasingly secular France; John was a parish priest who challenged his people to grow in holiness. He drew his people to the Sacraments, spending 12 hours a day in the confessional during winter and 16 in the summer. This radical commitment to Jesus in a world hostile to the Church drew people’s attention around the globe. By 1855, there we upwards of 20,000 people making pilgrimages to Ars to see him.
His way of asceticism wasn’t an easy one, but it reminds us that getting to Jesus often isn’t easy. It takes us out of our comfort zone, into a territory that can be difficult and unpleasant. It means giving up some of the joys and comforts our lives as they are and instead place ourselves at the feet of Jesus in the Sacraments. It means showing the world our faith, even when those around us despise us for it or want us just to be sent away.
Please today, pray for our Pastor and pray for our priests. Pray for vocations. Pray that they will be models of holiness and challenge us to grow into the men and women that God created us to be. Because even the scraps from the master’s table are so abundantly full of grace that if we truly received them with an open heart, even the most hardened sinner would become a Saint.
A reflection on the readings for the Memorial of Saint John Vianney: August 4th, 2021