Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time ‘c’

Mark 7:24-30

The woman from the gospel reading today did not give up. She was very persistent, and she had faith that the Lord would free her possessed daughter. It seems that at first Jesus was trying to send her away, asking her - why are you coming to me, you have your own gods, go to them. But she didn’t go away. She believed that Jesus could heal her daughter, and so she continued humbly begging Jesus to listen to her. There is so much we can learn from that Greek woman. There are times when we think that God doesn’t listen to our prayers because He does not respond the way we want Him to respond, and so we give up. Or we expect God to give us what we want. Instead we should ask God to give us the faith and humility of that woman from the gospel. God always listens to us; He is right there. But perhaps we don’t fully believe in His power.