August 16, 2026
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 118
Reading 1
Thus says the LORD:
Observe what is right, do what is just;
for my salvation is about to come,
my justice, about to be revealed.
The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
ministering to him,
loving the name of the LORD,
and becoming his servants—
all who keep the sabbath free from profanation
and hold to my covenant,
them I will bring to my holy mountain
and make joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be acceptable on my altar,
for my house shall be called
a house of prayer for all peoples.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (4) O God, let all the nations praise you!
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
I am speaking to you Gentiles.
Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles,
I glory in my ministry in order to make my race jealous
and thus save some of them.
For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world,
what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
Just as you once disobeyed God
but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
so they have now disobeyed in order that,
by virtue of the mercy shown to you,
they too may now receive mercy.
For God delivered all to disobedience,
that he might have mercy upon all.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and
Sidon.
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon."
But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.
Jesus' disciples came and asked him,
"Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us."
He said in reply,
"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help
me."
He said in reply,
"It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs."
She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters."
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
"O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish."
And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081626.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
56:1,6-7; Romans 11:13-15,29-32; Matthew 15:21-28
In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus entering non-Jewish
territory, something he very seldom does. We find him in the district of Tyre
and Sidon, two coastal cities on the Mediterranean coast (now in present-day
Lebanon). Unlike some of the Jewish towns that are linked with Jesus and the
Gospel which have disappeared or are in ruins, these two pagan towns still
flourish.
A ‘pagan’ woman
Suddenly a Canaanite woman from that region comes up and begins shouting at
Jesus. We need to realise that the Canaanites were the traditional enemies of
the Jews. They were regarded as pagans and idolators and ritually unclean.
Her status does not discourage this women in her desperate
need. Perhaps even as far as here, the reputation of Jesus was known. She cries
out:
Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is
tormented by a demon.
Whether it was really a demon or some illness which led to
uncontrolled or uncontrollable behaviour is not really important. There were
many sicknesses which were poorly understood at the time and which filled
people with fear.
What is important is that her prayer expresses both
helplessness and faith. Basically, all of us are also helpless and without God
there is little that we can do by ourselves. Jesus told his disciples at the
Last Supper:
…apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
Her faith is expressed in the titles she gives Jesus: ‘Lord’
and ‘Son of David’. They indicate that she sees in Jesus someone above the
ordinary—someone very special. And the title ‘Son of David’ has Messianic
overtones.
In spite of that Jesus simply ignores her, as if she did not
exist. Do we feel that way sometimes when we make a specially important
petition of Jesus? Do we feel that he is very far away—that he is paying no
attention? Do we feel like the disciples in the storm when Jesus was fast
asleep in the boat?
Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? (Mark
4:38)
The disciples are no better. As the woman keeps shouting
after them, they ask Jesus to:
Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.
They have no compassion. To them she is merely a nuisance,
and a pagan nuisance as well. How often have we given in ‘charity’ just
to get rid of a bothersome beggar?
Jesus’ mission
Jesus’ reason for not listening to her is that:
I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
He seems to be saying that, since she is an outsider, her
problem is of no concern to him. In fact, Jesus’ mission and work was almost
entirely centred on his own people. The task of passing on his message to
others would be left to his disciples. And as we know from the Acts of the
Apostles, they did not realise that at first. It took some special experiences
before they realised that the Gentiles could also be filled with the Spirit of
God and were being called to be followers of Jesus.
This had already been foretold by the prophet Isaiah in
today’s First Reading:
…the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to
minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants,…these I
will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their…offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house
shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
The woman’s perseverance
The woman is not discouraged by any of these responses. She comes and kneels
before him, an act of worship, and prays simply:
Lord, help me.
Jesus’ answer seems quite shocking:
It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it
to the dogs.
On another occasion Jesus had also told his disciples:
…do not throw your pearls before swine… (Matt
7:6)
The term “dogs” was a common one for the Gentiles. Dogs were
regarded by the Jews as unclean, because they would eat anything given to them,
including pork, for instance. The Gentiles, in the eyes of the Jews, who were
very particular about what was clean and unclean, were no better than dogs.
However, as has been pointed out, everything depends on the
tone of voice with which Jesus uttered these words. They could have been spoken
with arrogance, contempt and racial superiority. But that would be completely
contrary to everything else we know about Jesus. It is more likely that it
would have been said in a testing and joking way:
“You know very well, my dear woman, that in my community it
is not right to take the children’s food and give it to the ‘dogs’!”
And she, totally unfazed and taking her cue from his tone of
voice, throws back:
Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs [and that of course
also means all of us!] eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’
table.
Perhaps there was even a little touch of playful satire on
her part in saying “their masters’ table”—meaning “You people, of
course, are superior to us”.
Now, Jesus is completely won over by her faith, her confidence
and her wit:
Woman, great is your faith!
This is obvious from her tenacity. She will not take ‘No’
for an answer. Jesus’ response is almost inevitable:
Let it be done for you as you wish.
And her daughter was healed instantly.
Trust and prayer
There are a number of lessons from today’s reading. There is a need for total
trust and confidence that Jesus really does care for us, in spite of
indications to the contrary.
There is also the need for us to persist in prayer. We must
realise that this does not always result in getting what we have asked for. It
helps us to see more clearly what God wants for us and what really is the best
for us. What we need most is not the carrying out of our own wishes, but having
the peace and security that can only come from our being in total harmony with
God’s will for us, so that his will and mine are identical—so that I want what
he wants.
Today’s Gospel is an affirmation that God’s love and mercy
are extended to all who call on him in faith and trust, no matter who they are
or where they are.
As baptised members of the Christian community we have been
given special privileges of knowledge and access to God’s love. But we have
also serious responsibilities arising from this. One of these responsibilities
is to make clear to others by the way we live, speak and act that God’s love
and God’s mercy and God’s healing are for them also.
In God’s eyes there are no ‘dogs’. And the food on the
Master’s table, the Lord’s Word and his Love—not just the crumbs—is for all
without exception.
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Sunday,
August 16, 2026
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures
with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In
the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the
presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the
cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life
and of resurrection. Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice
in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the
poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two
disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness
to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and
peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father
and sent us your Spirit. Amen.
Gospel Reading Matthew 15: 21-28
A Key to Guide the Reading:
In today’s text, Jesus meets a foreign woman, something
forbidden by the religion of that time. At first Jesus would not pay attention
to her, but the woman insisted and got what she wanted. This text helps us to
understand how Jesus went about knowing and putting into practice the will of
God. A Division of the Text to Help With
the Reading:
•
Mt 15: 21-22: The pained cry of the woman
•
Mt 15: 23-24: The strange silence of Jesus and
the reaction of the disciples
•
Mt 15: 25-26: The repeated request of the woman
and Jesus’ renewed refusal
·
Mt 15: 27-28: The third try of the woman who
obtains the healing of her daughter.
The
Text:
21-22: Jesus left that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and
Sidon. And suddenly out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started
shouting,
'Lord, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented
by a devil.'
23-24: But he said
not a word in answer to her. And his
disciples went and pleaded with
him, saying, 'Give her what she wants, because she keeps shouting after us.' He
said in reply, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.'
25-26: But the woman had come up and was bowing low before him.
'Lord,' she said, 'help me.' He replied, 'It is not fair to take the children's
food and throw it to little dogs.'
27-28: She
retorted, 'Ah yes, Lord; but even little dogs eat the scraps that fall from
their masters' table.' Then Jesus answered her, 'Woman, you have great faith.
Let your desire be granted.' And from that moment her daughter was well again.
A
Moment of Prayerful Silence
so that the Word of God may enter into us and
enlighten our life.
Some Questions
to help us in our personal reflection.
•
What caught my attention most and pleased me
most in this episode?
•
Four characters appear in the text: the woman,
the daughter, the disciples and Jesus. What does the text say about each one’s
attitude? With which of the four do you identify yourself most? Why?
•
Jesus says that his mission does not permit him
to listen to the woman’s request. But soon after he grants her request. How do
you explain this sudden change in Jesus’ attitude?
•
How did the woman’s reply concerning the dogs
and the scraps influence Jesus?
•
Why do those words reveal the woman’s great
faith?
•
How can Jesus’ words help our community to grow
in faith?
A Key to the Reading
for those who wish to go deeper into the text.
The Context Within Which Matthew Preserves
the Words of Jesus:
Matthew’s Gospel, written about 85
AD, is addressed to a community of pious and observant Jews, converted to faith
in Jesus. After Jesus’ example, they continued to live according to the
traditions of the Jewish people, observing the Law of Moses in its fullness.
But now in the 80s they find themselves in an ambivalent situation. After the
destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD), the Pharisees, their racial brothers, had
started to reorganise Judaism, and, in the name of fidelity to that same Law of
Moses, sought to block the ever increasing spread Christianity. They came to
the point of expelling them from the synagogues. This unforeseen hostility
brought the community of Christian Jews into deep crisis. Both the Pharisees
and the Christians claimed to be faithful to the law of God. Who was right? On
whose side was God? To whom did the inheritance of the Jewish people belong, to
the synagogue or to the ecclesia?
•
It is precisely to encourage and support this
group of Jewish-Christians that Matthew writes his Gospel. He writes to confirm them in the faith by showing
that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the culmination of the whole history of the
Old Testament. He writes to strengthen them
in the midst of hostility, helping them to overcome the trauma of the break
with the brothers. He writes to call them
to a new practice of life, showing them the way to a new form of justice,
better than that of the Pharisees.
•
In this context, the episode of the Canaanite
woman served to show the community how this same Jesus took concrete steps to
go beyond the limitations of a religion turned in on itself and how he went
about discerning the will of God beyond the traditional scheme.
A Commentary on the Words of Jesus as
Preserved in Matthew:
•
Matthew 15: 21: Jesus moves away from the Jewish
territory.
In the discussion concerning what is pure and what is not,
Jesus had taught that which was contrary to the tradition of the ancients,
declaring all foods to be clean, and helped the people and the disciples free
themselves of the chains of the laws on purity (Mt 15: 1-20). Now, in this
episode of the Canaanite woman, he moves away from Galilee, goes beyond the
frontiers of the national territory and welcomes a foreign woman who did not
belong to the people and with whom it was forbidden to talk. The Gospel of Mark
informs us that Jesus did not want to be known. He wanted to remain anonymous.
But it is evident that his fame had already preceded him (Mk 7: 24). The people
knew him and a woman begins to present him with a request.
•
Matthew 15: 22: The anguished cry of the woman.
The woman was from another race and religion.
She begins to beg for the healing of her daughter who was possessed by an
unclean spirit. The pagans had no problem having recourse to Jesus. The Jews,
however, had problems co-existing with the pagans! The Law forbade them to make
contact with a person of another religion or race.
Matthew 15: 23-24: The strange
silence of Jesus and the reaction of the disciples.
The woman shouts, but Jesus does not respond. A strange
attitude! Because, if there is one sure thing throughout the Bible, from beginning
to end, it is that God always listens to the cry of the oppressed. But here
Jesus does not listen. He does not want to listen. Why? Even the disciples are
surprised by Jesus’ attitude and ask him to say something to the woman. They
want to get rid of that shouting: "Give her what she wants, they said,
because she is shouting after us." Jesus explains his silence, "I was
sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." His silence is
connected with an awareness of his mission and his fidelity to the law of God.
The passive form shows that the subject of the verb’s action is the Father. It
is as though he had said, "The Father does not want me to listen to this
woman, because He has sent me only to the lost sheep of Israel!" For the
same reason, at the time of Matthew’s writing of the Gospel, the Pharisees were
saying, "We cannot make contact with pagans!"
•
Matthew 15: 25-26: The woman repeats her request
and Jesus again refuses her.
The woman is not worried by the refusal of Jesus. The love
of a mother for her sick daughter does not take notice of religious rules or
the reaction of other people, but seeks healing wherever her intuition leads
her to a solution, namely, in Jesus! She draws closer, she throws herself at
Jesus’ feet and goes on begging, "Lord, help me". Faithful to the
rules of his religion, Jesus answers with a parable and says that it is not
right to take the bread of one’s children and give it to dogs. The parallel is
taken from everyday life. Even today, we find many children and dogs in the
houses of the poor. Jesus says that no mother will take bread from the mouths
of her children and give it to dogs. Concretely, the children are the Jewish
people and the dogs are the pagans. End of story! Obedient to the Father and
faithful to his mission, Jesus goes on his way and takes no notice of the
pleading of the woman!
•
Matthew 15: 27-28: At the third attempt, the
woman obtains the healing of her daughter.
The woman will not yield. She agrees with Jesus, but she
amplifies the parallel and applies it to her case, "Ah, yes, sir; but even
housedogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table". She
simply draws the conclusion from that image, showing that in the houses of the
poor (and so also in the house of Jesus) the dogs eat the scraps that fall from
the table of the children. Most probably, Jesus himself as a young boy would
have given bits of bread to dogs that roamed under the table where he ate with
his parents. And in "Jesus’ house", that is, in the Christian community
of Matthew’s time, at the end of the first century, there were "twelve
baskets full" left over (Mt 14: 20) for the "dogs", that is, for
the pagans!
Jesus’ reaction is immediate,
"Woman, you have great faith!" The woman got what she asked for. From
that moment her daughter was healed. The reason
Jesus responded was
that he understood that the Father wanted him to
grant the woman’s request. The meeting
with the Canaanite woman freed him from the racial prison and opened him to the
whole of humanity. This means that Jesus discovered the will of the Father by
listening to the reactions of people. This pagan woman’s attitude opened new
horizons for Jesus and helped him take an important step in the fulfilment of
the Father’s plan. The gift of life and salvation is for all who seek life and
who try to free themselves from the chains that bind vital energy. This episode
helps us to perceive a little of the mystery that surrounded the person of
Jesus, the manner in which he was in communion with the Father and how he
discovered the will of the Father in the events of life.
Psalm 6
Let us unite ourselves to the shouts of all mothers
for their sons and daughters
O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger, nor chasten me in thy
wrath.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I
am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is sorely troubled. But thou, O Lord--how long?
Turn, O Lord, save my life;
deliver me for the sake of thy
steadfast love. For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can
give thee praise? I am weary with my moaning;
every night I
flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away
because of grief, it grows weak because of all my foes. from me, all you
workers of evil; for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has
heard my supplication; the Lord accepts my prayer.
All my enemies shall be ashamed and sorely troubled; they
shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.
Final Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank for the word that has enabled us to
understand better the will of the Father. May your Spirit enlighten our actions
and grant us the strength to practice that which your Word has revealed to us.
May we, like Mary, your mother, not only listen to but also practise the Word.
You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever
and ever. Amen.
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