Setting priorities

Nm 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
The LORD said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,] “Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan, which I am giving the children of Israel. You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe, all of them princes.”

After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned, met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel in the desert of Paran at Kadesh, made a report to them all, and showed the fruit of the country to the whole congregation. They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. However, the people who are living in the land are fierce, and the towns are fortified and very strong. Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands, and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.” Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said, “We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.” So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel about the land they had scouted, saying, “The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants. And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants (the Anakim were a race of giants); we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”

At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries, and even in the night the people wailed. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against me. Tell them: By my life, says the LORD, I will do to you just what I have heard you say. Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall. Forty days you spent in scouting the land; forty years shall you suffer for your crimes: one year for each day. Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me. I, the LORD, have sworn to do this to all this wicked assembly that conspired against me: here in the desert they shall die to the last man.”

Mt 15: 21-28
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Most of us get used to things, make them habits, or basically forget them unless something goes wrong. This pertains to what we see and smell as well as to such activities as walking, eating, and driving—not to mention the way that we think.

And we also have our little temporary preferences and "needs" that we can forget two weeks later, putting them behind us as unimportant. They can disappear from our lives, even if these "needs" can seem temporarily urgent or even essential to our well-being.

In the Gospel passage the Lord seems to be addressing this trait in the way that good teachers do. He deals lovingly with the woman in today's gospel, teaching her with what seems at first to be cruel disregard. Consider that Jesus has left Israel to go to a specifically pagan area, He does this one remembered thing, and then He returns to Israel: is this conversation with the woman really a refusal on His part? I don't think so.

The woman needs to pray unceasingly, just as the woman appealing to the unjust judge (Luke 18), but in this case it is not that Jesus is refusing or even that He changes His mind: in the heat of her desire and the insistence of her prayer, the woman comes to see the depth of her need and her faith, engages her courage and her wit, and grows as a result of the interaction. Her daughter may be healed in body, but she herself is graced with a greater faith and love.

We must pray unceasingly. We have to learn to ask for what it is that we really desire, not taking Jesus for granted and not just asking for a passing fancy of our hearts. We have to be serious about our lives as we approach the Lord.