Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần thứ 5 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần thứ 5 Thường Niên (Mark 7:24-30)

Thiên Chúa đang hành động trong tâm hồn của tất cả mỗi người chúng ta, không phải chỉ ở nơi những người theo đạo Thiên chúa.  Qua đoạn Tin Mừng hôm nay, chúng ta thấy Thánh Marcô đã diễn tả và chứng minh cho chúng ta thấy: ý nghĩa của Đức Tin là gì?.
            Một người phụ nữ ngoại đạo rất kiên trì, kỳ nài xin Chúa Giêsu giúp cứu sống con gái của bà và Chúa đã đáp ứng sự mong muốn và cầu xin của bà. Một điều rất kinh ngạc là bà là một người ngoại giáo (những người mà người Do Thái thường khinh chê). Trong thực tại Chúa Giêsu đã phải ngưỡng mộ lòng tin của bà, Với một lòng tin và chân thành bà đã hạ mình (khi bị coi như là một con chó) cầu khẩn để sự chữa lành cho người con gái của bà. Lòng tin tưởng của bà đã làm Chúa Giêsu phải siêu lòng. Đối với một người dân ngoại như bà, một người có niềm tin vượt xa hơn cả những người Do Thái, dân riêng của Chúa.
            Đức tin không có liên quan đến cái đầu của hơn là liên quan đến với trái tim! đức tin của người phụ nữ đang ở trong Trái tim của bà. Với đức tin mãnh liệt nơi bà! bà ta sẽ không dễ dàng nản lòng và bỏ cuộc. Trong lúc đó, Chúa Giêsu đã nhận ra được đức tin của bà khi Ngài giả vờ từ chối bà! Lòng Tin cứng rắn thì bao gồm cả sự đầu hàng cần thiết, kể ngay cả nhân phẩm cá nhân của chúng ta. Chúa làm việc và hành động với những người biết khiêm tốn, vâng phục và biết sống theo cách của Ngài. Nếu chúng ta không sống theo với Lời Chúa, thì phước lành và ơn sũng của Ngài cũng có thể rời bỏ chúng ta để vào trong những thắc mắc, ghi vấn bí ẩn của chúng ta, Ngài không ban cho chúng ta những câu trả lời mà chúng ta muốn! Thiên Chúa hiện diện trong tất cả  mọi trường hợp và môi trường mà chúng ta đang sống! Chúng ta chỉ cần buông thả,  vì có Chúa sẽ luôn quan phòng cho chúng ta..!
            "Lạy Chúa Giêsu, tình yêu và lòng thương xót của Chúa được biết là không có giới hạn. Chúng con có thể luôn luôn tin tưởng vào Chúa và không bao giờ nghi ngờ về sự yêu thương chăm sóc và lòng thương xót của Chúa, Xin ban thêm cho đức tin của chúng con được vũng mạnh trong sự cứu rỗi của Chúa và xin giải thoát chúng con khỏi mọi sự dữ và nguy hiểm trong cuộc sống hôm nay và trong thê giới này."
 
REFLECTION
God is at work in the hearts of all us, not just those who are Christian. Look at today’s Gospel passage. True to his intention, Saint Mark was demonstrating what it means to have faith.
            A very persistent woman who wants her daughter to be healed confronts Jesus. She is so persistent that Jesus gives in to her and fulfills her desire. The most amazing thing is that she is a pagan.  Jesus is in fact in admiration of her faith. She literally wrests the healing and deliverance of her daughter! Her faith in Jesus, changes his orientation, towards pagan people like her, whose faith far surpasses that of the ‘God chosen’ people.
            Faith has less to do with our head than with the heart! The woman’s heart was in her faith in Jesus! She was not going to give up easily as Jesus realized from her response to his re-buff! Faith includes a necessary surrendering of our dignity. The Lord works with people who are humble and obedient to him and his ways. If we fail to live according to God's word, his blessings may well pass from us to others, just as Paul explains his proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles because the Jews would not listen to him. 
            God enters into our questions, he does not provide the answers! For us as for the woman “reality” is the best teacher. God is in the circumstances we are in! We need only to let go!
            "Lord Jesus, your love and mercy knows no bounds. May I trust you always and never doubt your loving care and mercy. Increase my faith in your saving help and deliver me from all evil and harm."
 
Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
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. Mark 7:25–26
A parent’s love is powerful. And the woman in this story clearly loves her daughter. It is that love that drives this mother to seek out Jesus in the hope that He will free her daughter from the demon who possessed her. Interestingly, this woman was not of the Jewish faith. She was a Gentile, a foreigner, but her faith was very real and very deep.
When Jesus first encountered this woman, she begged Him to free her daughter from the demon. Jesus’ response was at first surprising. 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.” In other words, Jesus was saying that His mission was first to the people of Israel, the chosen people of the Jewish faith. They were the “children” of whom Jesus was speaking, and the Gentiles, such as this woman, were the ones referred to as “the dogs.” Jesus spoke this way to this woman not out of rudeness but because He could see her deep faith, and He wanted to give her an opportunity to manifest that faith for all to see. And so she did.
The woman responded to Jesus, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Her words were not only exceptionally humble but were also based on deep faith and a deep love for her daughter. As a result, Jesus responds with generosity and immediately frees her daughter from the demon.
In our own lives, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we deserve the mercy of God. We can think that we have a right to God’s grace. And even though Jesus deeply desires to pour forth His grace and mercy in superabundance on our lives, it is essential that we fully understand our unworthiness before Him. The disposition of this woman’s heart sets for us a perfect example of how we must come to our Lord.
Reflect, today, upon the beautiful example of this woman of deep faith. Prayerfully read her words over and over. Try to understand her humility, her hope, and her love for her daughter. As you do, pray that you will be able to imitate her goodness so as to share in the blessings she and her daughter received.
My merciful Lord, I trust in Your perfect love for me and for all peoples. I pray especially for those who carry heavy burdens and for those whose lives are deeply intertwined with evil. Please set them free, dear Lord, and welcome them into Your family so that they become true children of Your Father. May I have the humility and faith I need to help bring forth this abundance of grace for others. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
 
Thursday 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025
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.
 
Thursday 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer: Good Jesus, you have invited me to this time of prayer, this encounter, with you. You have something you wish to say to me today, some grace you want to give me. And you know how much I need you. Open my heart to receive your word. Come, Holy Spirit, help me to hear you and to respond. 
Encountering Christ: 
Deliberately: In the passage before this one, St. Mark presented Jesus in Gennesaret. Now, he travels to the district of Tyre, an important trade city of the Roman Empire at that time. Let’s just say it was not a typical route to travel since he had to cross a ridge of mountains alongside the Mediterranean coast to get there from where he was. For some reason, Jesus wanted to be there. Mark tells us he wanted to escape notice. Perhaps he needed some time alone to rest. Or perhaps he went there deliberately to find a soul in need of him–a foreigner–who otherwise would have had no access to him. What does this tell us, in our current reality, about the gratuity of God’s providence and the universality of his message for all? 
A Mother’s Prayer: How did Jesus receive the prayers of a mother? We know the example of St. Monica, who wept and prayed for the conversion of her son Augustine. St. Ambrose told her: “The son of these tears cannot be lost.” Perhaps St. Ambrose himself was inspired by the way Jesus received the prayers of this Syrophoenician mother. In any case, it reminds us of the filial, loving attention Jesus gives to the intercession of his Mother Mary. Our God, who became like us in all things but sin, also wanted to have a mother as we do, and even to give her to us as our own mother (cf. John 19). His heart, human and divine, cannot help but be moved by a mother’s prayer. 
Dialogue in Humor and Faith: The dialogue between Jesus and this Gentile woman is striking, if not upsetting, at first glance. Michael Pakaluk, who offers a fresh translation of St. Mark’s original Greek in his book The Memoirs of St. Peter says this is not a parable about who is better–Jew or Greek–but about priorities. Jesus had come to proclaim salvation first to the Jews, the Chosen People his Father had prepared, and then to the Gentiles (the task he would give to his Apostles, cf. Matthew 28:19). He said as much to the woman in his “parable” (riddle, almost) about children and dogs. She in turn took that parable and turned it back to Jesus: even while the children eat at the table, the dogs are fed, too, by the crumbs. She was not turned away by an answer from Jesus that she did not entirely understand; she embraced it, in faith, and responded as best she could. Jesus saw her faith and blessed her. Let us learn from this woman how to dialogue with the Lord with humor and openness, just as we are, and from there, let faith grow. 
Conversing with Christ: Jesus, you come out to seek me, too, just as you did this woman. You have a tender place in your heart for a mother’s intercession. I, therefore, entrust all my needs to your Mother’s faithful and good hands, that she may present them to you. Help me, Jesus, teach me, to dialogue with you—not to be afraid to wrestle, even, in faith, with the way you are acting in my life. You yourself are the crumbs which fall from the table: the Eucharist, which you come to give me, from your altar. I will make the effort to come to you, Lord. Come to my heart in response. 
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will make a spiritual communion, and speak to you in my heart about what I most need. 
 
Thursday 5th Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus withdraws to a territory, outside Israel; he wished to go unrecognized! But a desperate woman recognizes his hiding place, and came straight into the house, throwing herself at his feet. What is he to do? His “ministry” was specifically towards the “lost sheep of the house of Israel!” His initial response was to seemingly deny her request, for the deliverance of her daughter! But the woman’s amazing display of faith and utter dependence on him, won him over! He is in fact in admiration of her faith: your faith is great! (Mt. 15:28) She literally wrests the healing and deliverance of her daughter! Her faith in Jesus, changes his orientation, towards pagan people like her, whose faith far surpasses that of the ‘chosen’ people.
            Faith has less to do with our head than with the heart! The woman’s heart was in her faith in Jesus! She was not going to give up easily as Jesus realized from her response to his re-buff! Faith includes a necessary surrendering of our dignity. We learn by going where we have to go, where we dare not go!
            God enters into our questions; he does not provide the answers! For us as for the woman “reality” is the best teacher. God is in the circumstances we are in! We need only to let go! Lord, I trust You, inspire of everything and anything!
 
REFLECTION
God is at work in the hearts of all men and women, not just those who are Christian. Look at the Gospel. True to his intention, Mark was a non-Jew demonstrating what it means to have faith. A very persistent woman who wants her daughter to be healed confronts Jesus. She is so persistent that Jesus gives in to her and fulfills her desire. The most amazing thing is that she is a pagan. How could she possibly know who Jesus is, let alone have faith in him?
            The Church in it is theology of conversion and evangelization tells us that even before people hear the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is at work in their hearts preparing them for this very event. The Second Vatican Council also affirms that there are elements of the truth at work in all cultures and religions and that the Church affirms and encourages these aspects of them. St. Paul writes about our ability to know and come to believe in God through the wonder and glory of creation, even without specifically hearing the Gospel proclaimed.
            The scriptures tell us that the Lord works with people who are humble and obedient to him and his ways. If we fail to live according to God's word, his blessings may well pass from us to others, just as Paul explains his proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles because the Jews would not listen to him.
            If anything, we should be awed by the responsibility we bear as Catholics. The fullness of the truth necessary for salvation subsists within the Catholic Church. This means that we have a duty and a responsibility to live out this truth to the full and, as such, to be a beacon light lighting up for all peoples the path of eternal salvation.