From Season to Season

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me. —Matthew 25:35-36 In 1995, Saint John Paul II canonized two very different saints from the Czech Republic. The first was Jan Sarkander , a Jesuit priest and martyr who was killed by militant Protestants in 1620, partly because he refused to reveal what he had heard in the confessional. The other person canonized in that ceremony was Zdislava (or Zedislava) of Lamberk, a wife and mother whose commemoration is celebrated on January 1. Zdislava was born in the early part of the thirteenth century in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). There are stories about her piety as a child and of her desire to live a life of prayer and solitude. However, her family prevailed upon her to marry Count Havel of Lamberk, with whom she had four children. Zdislava lived a life centered on prayer and charity. She was especially devoted...

The story of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite Woman ( Matthew15:21-28 ) that we hear this Sunday is one of the more difficult episodes of the gospels. Not because it shares the opaqueness of many of the parables or because Jesus is revealing a challenging theological truth. Instead, it’s difficult to read and hear because it is a story about Jesus that doesn’t fit our childish Sunday-school version of who Jesus was.  In this passage, Jesus has traveled to the Gentile (non-Jewish) region of Tyre and Sidon. John the Baptist has been murdered by King Herod ( Matthew 14:1-12 ) and Jesus himself is now on Herod’s radar. It is likely that Jesus has gone to these coastal towns to get out of Herod’s jurisdiction and to have some time alone to grieve the death of John the Baptist (throughout chapter 14 of Matthew’s Gospel, we hear, more than once, about Jesus trying to find solitude for prayer and reflection). This would be a region where he wasn’t known. And yet, he’s recognized by a...