Mark 7:24-30

Genesis 2:18-25

Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5

Mark 7:24-30

Jesus went to the district of Tyre.

He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it,

but he could not escape notice.

Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.

She came and fell at his feet.

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.”

When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed

and the demon gone.

Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you for the blessing you have bestowed upon the entire world through your Son. You feed me each day with your Word and the Bread of Life. Help me grow in my relationships of love and give of myself as your Son did.

Encountering the Word of God

1. Extending the Blessing to the Gentiles: When Jesus went to the district of Tyre, he was going beyond the confines of Galilee and into Gentile territory. He was approached by a Gentile woman, a Syrophoenician, whose daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit. Jesus tested her faith when he said: “Let the children (meaning the people of Israel) be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs (a term used by the Judeans for the Gentiles).” The point of the story is not to say that Jesus insulted her or that Jesus was having a bad day, but to indicate that the blessings of the kingdom must first be given to God’s chosen people, to whom they had been promised. By saying, “first,” Jesus alludes to a time when, after his passion and resurrection, the blessing of the kingdom will be extended to the Gentiles. By performing the exorcism of the woman’s daughter before the resurrection, Jesus works an anticipatory sign of the blessing of liberation from sin and demonic oppression that the Gentiles will soon receive.

2. Men and Women as Partners: In the First Reading, we continue to read the second account of creation in Genesis. While the first creation account focused on the problem of the land being formless and empty, the second creation account focuses on the problem of man being alone. The Lord God says: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God formed the animals and birds and brought them to the man for him to name them. But none were a suitable partner (Hebrew: ezer) for the man. The term “helper” or “partner” does not mean the woman, who will be created by God, has a secondary or servile role. In fact, the term is often used to describe God. Psalm 30:10 prays: “O Lord, be my helper (Hebrew: ozer).” When God forms the woman from the man’s rib, near his heart, this is a symbol of the loving relationship they should have. 

3. Embodiment and Sexual Complementarity: In both of its creation accounts, Genesis highlights our embodiment as male or female and our sexual complementarity. “The body, in its sexual complementarity, reveals that we are created for relationship, for interpersonal union” (Healy, Men and Women are from Eden), 15).  Adam and Eve recognized in the other an equal, a person they could love, a person to whom they could give themselves entirely and completely. “[T]his deeply personal union, in which the man and woman become a gift to one another, is enacted in their bodies through the sexual embrace” (Healy, Men and Women are from Eden, 15). The body, Genesis teaches, is made for spousal union. We are made for a communion of persons, “an interpersonal union in which I freely give myself to another in love and receive love in return” (Healy, Men and Women are from Eden, 16).

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you offer the supreme example of love for your bride, the Church. You gave yourself for her without reserve and died for her. You cleansed her and sanctified her with your Spirit.

Living the Word of God: How well do I know the teaching of the Church on marriage and the Theology of the Body of John Paul II? Could I use a refresher or read an introductory book like Sri’s Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love or Healy’s Men and Women are From Eden?