Pages from the Past: Two Women of Great Faith

From 2013? Written as a prayer to Jesus.

Andreas Herrlein [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s Gospel of the Syro-Phoenician woman absolutely delights me, as her faith delighted you, Jesus. I “heard” it today in a TOB context, in which she appears unexpectedly to you, as Eve did for Adam, suddenly revealed in her vulnerability and openness as a “helper fit” for you. Her faith corresponds in such a way to your gift of self in your ministry as to suddenly manifest the communion of persons that this life is all about. She was “bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh” and your “O woman! Great is your faith!” was the cry of the new Adam on seeing—finally—someone who corresponded to his call.

Mary at Cana is exactly the same kind of “fit helper.” And probably every bit as spunky and wry, giving as good as she got.

The Wedding at Cana; Mosaic by Ivan Rupnik, SJ; 
Photo by Lawrence Lew, OP

Where you told the Syro-Phoenician that “the children’s food cannot be given to little dogs,” you told your own mother that the problem she was bringing up was not  your problem. And both women of great faith turned the tables on you. (It is also interesting that both stories involve the image of food—one of bread, the other of wine. And there is Jesus, the real food, in the middle.)

“Woman, great is your faith!” is like the cry of the woman sweeping her house and suddenly—there it is! the coin she had lost! “Rejoice with me; I have found the coin I lost!” Delight, surprise, dancing, celebration, acknowledgment to all others around.

I ask, on the basis of nothing more than the fact that you desire it and that it can be for your Father’s glory, that my faith might become such as to reveal me a “fit helper” at  your side, and will cause you to explode with amazement and joy and delight and acknowledgement. I’m not giving you much to work from, with my measly, nervous, cerebral faith. I guess you yourself will have to provide…the rib for my faith to be built on.

I asked for a kind of confirmation sign of this insight. Later that day I dumped onto my retreat house desk the contents of a little bag of adapters and a small silver coin with a Hebrew inscription rolled out; it turned out to be a shekel. (I have no idea how it ended up in my adapter pouch. It’s a keeper, for sure!)

Duly noted: “to be conformed to the image of the Son” hints that being made into “a helper like himself” is a process that extends through our life (and through time, for the “we” of the Church). It’s not simply a one by one, individual, atomized thing.



"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share.