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• Readings for Sunday, August 16th

  The 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

• Sunday Homily

  Twelve years ago today I was on a small island called “Holy Isle,” way up on the northeast corner of England, just a few miles south of Scotland, part of the Farne Islands in the North Sea. 

  
  

  You must be careful when you go there. You drive onto the island on a road several miles long while the tide is out and you have to drive back to the mainland when the tide is out.  

  
  

  Otherwise, you’ll get caught in the rising ocean and won’t be seen again. The North Sea will carry you and your rental car away, perhaps to Norway, and that’s a clear violation of the rental car agreement.

  
  

  On that island it was so windy walking around. On that hot day, the temperature in the 80s, I got unbearable earaches from the wind in just 5 minutes. It is not a place for the weak of spirit.

  
  

  ‘Holy Isle’ is the site of an ancient monastery founded by Saint Aidan of Ireland. And it’s the place where the monks illustrated the famous Lindisfarne Gospels, those beautifully illustrated medieval books that are well protected at the British Library in London.

  
  

  The monasteries flourished in England in the Middle Ages. But, you know, when a man wanted to enter a monastery there was a practice we would find bizarre today.  

  
  

  He’d present himself at the door of a monastery to become a novice, and was made to wait, outside the monastery, even in the rain or the snow.  He would knock and knock, and no one would answer.

  Intentionally! 

  
  

  He’d often wait for days and do so without food or water.  

  
  

  A monk would finally come out and answer the door.  And the monk would say, “You’re not suited for us.  Go away.”

  
  

  Or “We’re all filled up; we haven’t any room.”

  
  

  Or “Come back next year.”

  
  

  If the man at the gate persevered and stuck around a few days, another monk would come out and in a louder voice tell him to go away. 

  
  

  Then, after a long time of being tested, perhaps weeks, perhaps months, only then, might they let him in.   Only then did the monks sense that the man was truly hungry for God.

  
  

  You see, monastic life wasn’t easy.  Many of the weaker applicants simply walked away when the door wasn’t opened right up to them.  Only those really starving for God would be let in. That was the common wisdom of the time.

  
  

  But it didn’t hurt their vocations program.  The monasteries were packed. Thousands of them. We know that at certain points in the Middle Ages twenty-five percent of the population were monks or sisters in monasteries.

  
  

  It may be difficult to understand this in our ‘instant everything culture,’ but here’s the wisdom: Persistence in life leads to rich experiences.

  
  

  And it’s something like that, I believe, that’s at the heart of today’s unusual Gospel.

  
  

  The story of the encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman is, at first glance, troubling.  When the woman first asks Jesus to heal her daughter, she’s met with silence.  Generally, we don’t see Jesus silent when someone asks him for help.

  
  

  But in this scene his silence, followed by what would appear to be put-downs, seems bizarre.  Well, he’s testing her, preparing her for something better, something great.

  
  

  We’re not seeing a hard-hearted Jesus; a Jesus we don’t even recognize.  

  
  

  I think we’re seeing a woman being challenged to grow more deeply in her faith.  

  
  

  ***

  
  

  God tests us.  It’s how we grow.  God tested Abraham’s faith when He asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.  And, of course, after God drew out Abraham’s faith, He called off the sacrifice of that son.

  
  

  God tested the Israelite people when they wandered 40 years in the desert, usually hungry.  

  
  

  God tests His people a lot, to strengthen them.  In the Bible, testing and waiting bring about learning. 

  
  

  God’s testing us is an educational experience.

  
  

  The Canaanite woman is being tested to take a great step forward.  And it’s her perseverance, her perseverance in prayer, that leads to her daughter’s healing.

  
  

  I’ve mentioned before how St. Augustine was once asked why God doesn’t seem to answer our prayers immediately.  Why do our prayers, sometimes, seem to be met with silence?

  
  

  Augustine said this, “God asks us to persist in our prayer so that our hearts might expand to receive the gift He wants to give us.”  

  
  

  We’re not always ready for what God wants to give us.  But we can be made ready by patience and deeper prayer.

  
  

  Jesus isn’t playing with the woman. But his silence and what seem like rebukes are offered that she might come to know just how great her faith is and deepen it.

  
  

  Jesus was preparing her to receive the gifts he wanted her to have.  Ultimately, her daughter is healed.

  
  

  If we’ve ever prayed for something and didn’t receive an answer straight away, this Gospel is meant for us to consider.  Everyone here today can relate to this story because we’ve all asked God for something and have been met with seeming silence.  

  
  

  Sometimes, our experience is that of the Canaanite woman, if with all our generosity of heart, with all the right instincts, we prayed for someone else, for a healing or a cure, and we heard silence.  

  
  

  On the other hand, when we’re made to wait, enduring silence and even apparent rejection, our hearts can grow and our souls expand.  

  
  

  May we keep praying, that we may receive the gifts God already has in mind for us.

• Download the homily

  • Homily for August 16th