The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate our experiences of being restored to joy, peace, and wellbeing as a complement to our situations of loneliness, anxiety, and despair.
The reading from the Prophet Jeremiah describes the joyful return of the Exiles.
* [31:2–3] Jeremiah describes the exiles of the Northern Kingdom on their way home from the nations where the Assyrians had resettled them (722/721 B.C.). The favor they discover in the wilderness is the appearance of the Lord (v. 3) coming to guide them to Jerusalem. Implicit in these verses is the presentation of the people’s return from captivity as a second exodus, a unifying theme in Second Isaiah (chaps. 40–55). (Jeremiah 31, n.d.)
The response from Jeremiah 31:10-13 proclaims:
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. (Jeremiah, CHAPTER 31, n.d.)
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus praises the Canaanite Woman’s faith.
* [15:28] As in the case of the cure of the centurion’s servant (Mt 8:10), Matthew ascribes Jesus’ granting the request to the woman’s great faith, a point not made equally explicit in the Marcan parallel (Mk 7:24–30). (Matthew, CHAPTER 15, n.d.)
Mike Cherney comments that In the Gospel, Jesus makes clear His special relationship with the Jewish people.
It is sobering to realize where I fit in the Biblical version of God’s historical relationship with mankind. I like to think of myself as special and called by name. I still am able to retain the feeling that I, as a Gentile with historical roots from a very distant tribe, am something much more than merely part of a second-round choice that occurs when Jesus is not embraced by large parts of his own faith community. I am left with a prayer that has me rethinking my place in the grand scheme of things.
Dear Lord,
I like to see stories from my own perspective.
Help me to open my mind and heart to see things from the perspective of others.
I also like to put myself at the center of the universe.
Not only am I not there, the recent images from space show what a small and distant planet we inhabit.
Allow me to see humbly from my position of insignificance.
Your personal gifts of grace and recognition take on so much more meaning in this context. (Cherney, n.d.)
Don Schwager quotes “The Mother of the Gentiles,” by Epiphanius the Latin (late 5th century).
"After our Lord departed from the Jews, he came into the regions of Tyre and Sidon. He left the Jews behind and came to the Gentiles. Those whom he had left behind remained in ruin; those to whom he came obtained salvation in their alienation. And a woman came out of that territory and cried, saying to him, 'Have pity on me, O Lord, Son of David!' O great mystery! The Lord came out from the Jews, and the woman came out from her Gentile territory. He left the Jews behind, and the woman left behind idolatry and an impious lifestyle. What they had lost, she found. The one whom they had denied in the law, she professed through her faith. This woman is the mother of the Gentiles, and she knew Christ through faith. Thus on behalf of her daughter (the Gentile people) she entreated the Lord. The daughter had been led astray by idolatry and sin and was severely possessed by a demon." (excerpt from INTERPRETATION OF THE GOSPELS 58) (Schwager, n.d.)
The Word Among Us Meditation on Jeremiah 31:1-7 comments that God loved them even before they were a people. His love didn’t fade when they were slaves in Egypt, as they wandered forty years in the desert, or when they lived in exile in Babylon. His love remained constant even when they were stuck in sin and idolatry. In that “age-old” love, he promised to restore them and bring them back from exile into the Promised Land.
This is the kind of everlasting love that God has for us too. It’s a love that can’t be measured by outward events or disproved by our feelings because it is before them all and after them all. If you think of your life—and the events that fill your life—as a timeline, God’s love encircles it all. From before the beginning of your life until after the end of it, his love surrounds you. It doesn’t evaporate during your tough times. It isn’t stronger in your good times. And God certainly doesn’t withdraw his love even when you turn away from him. No, his everlasting love calls you back to himself and promises mercy and restoration.
How marvelous is this unchanging, eternal love of God! Let it sustain you today.
“Lord, help me to see your love as the one constant thing in my life!” (Meditation on Jeremiah 31:1-7, n.d.)
Friar Jude Winkler reflects on the continuing story of restoration in Jeremiah that describes vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The Canaanite woman who may have been thought of as unclean as the dogs is shown to have great faith in Jesus' love and compassion. Friar Jude reminds those involved in the Church not to take faith for granted but be prepared to surrender to the will of God daily.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, Brian McLaren, and CAC staff member Paul Swanson discuss the ways a dangerous façade or “cult of innocence” can be used to claim superiority over others and even deny reality.
Seldom have I evoked so many implications and ramifications by one phrase, at least in the realm of theology, then when you gave me this phrase “cult of innocence.” I said, before even you explained it to me, “That’s it. That’s what Christianity allowed itself to become.” And it’s so triply ironic, because the Latin word innocens means “unwounded.” Here we worship a wounded man, and we said, “in his wounds are our salvation,” and yet much of our moral concentration is on proving we’re not wounded, we’re not wrong, we’re not at all bad, we’re not unworthy. Whereas Jesus, in utter freedom, says to the rich young man, “Why do you call me good? God alone is good” (Luke 18:19). That is such a line of inner freedom, where there is no need to be thought of as good. . . . (Rohr, n.d.)
We are invited by the Spirit to seek restoration in the experience of the love of God that is offered to all people.
References
Cherney, M. (n.d.). Daily Reflection Of Creighton University's Online Ministries. Creighton University's Online Ministries. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/080322.html
Jeremiah 31. (n.d.). Jeremiah. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/jeremiah/31?1
Jeremiah, CHAPTER 31. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/jeremiah/31?10
Matthew, CHAPTER 15. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/15?21
Meditation on Jeremiah 31:1-7. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://wau.org/meditations/2022/08/03/461135/
Rohr, R. (n.d.). God Alone Is Good. Daily Meditations Archive: 2022. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/god-alone-is-good-2022-08-03/
Schwager, D. (n.d.). The Mother of the Gentiles. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2022&date=aug3
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