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First Reading: Numbers 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
The Lord said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,]
“Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan,
which I am giving the children of Israel.
You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe,
all of them princes.”
After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned,
met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel
in the desert of Paran at Kadesh,
made a report to them all,
and showed the fruit of the country
to the whole congregation.
They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us.
It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.
However, the people who are living in the land are fierce,
and the towns are fortified and very strong.
Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there.
Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb;
Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands,
and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.”
Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,
“We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.”
But the men who had gone up with him said,
“We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.”
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel
about the land they had scouted, saying,
“The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants.
And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants
(the Anakim were a race of giants);
we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”
At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries,
and even in the night the people wailed.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron:
“How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me?
I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against me.
Tell them: By my life, says the Lord,
I will do to you just what I have heard you say.
Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall.
Forty days you spent in scouting the land;
forty years shall you suffer for your crimes:
one year for each day.
Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me.
I, the Lord, have sworn to do this
to all this wicked assembly that conspired against me:
here in the desert they shall die to the last man.”
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 106:6-7ab, 13-14, 21-22, 23
R./ Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
We have sinned, we and our fathers;
we have committed crimes; we have done wrong.
Our fathers in Egypt
considered not your wonders.
R./ Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
But soon they forgot his works;
they waited not for his counsel.
They gave way to craving in the desert
and tempted God in the wilderness.
R./ Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R./ Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R./ Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 15: 21-28
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 he did not say a word in answer to her.
His 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 him 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 her daughter was healed from that hour.
Opening Prayer
Father of all,
long ago you chose the people of Israel
to make your name known to all the nations.
Your Son, Jesus Christ made it clear
that forgiveness and the fullness of life are the share
of all who believe in him.
Make your Church truly a place of encounter
for all those who grope for you,
that all obstacles and barriers may be removed
and that the riches of all nations and cultures
may reveal the thousand faces
of the love you have shown us
in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Liturgy of the Word
First Reading Introduction: They despised the desirable land (Psalm 106:24).
We need a “discernment of spirits” to distinguish between wrong contestation and contestation that bears witness (con-testari) to what is just and right. When the Hebrews revolted in the desert, they protested against the demands of the covenant and the risks they had to take to make God’s future a reality. It was a resistance to conversion. But there is also a kind of contestation that is necessary: a sign of vitality and lucidity that is a call to conversion and rejection of complicity in evil.
Gospel Reading Introduction: O woman, great is your faith!
There are some obvious problems with the story of the Canaanite woman. The words of Jesus sound harsh and discriminating against non-Jews. Some exegetes see in it an exchange of wits between the woman and Jesus, reflecting the prejudices of their time, and yet, fundamentally, revealing that salvation is for all without discrimination and prejudice wherever faith is found. The way this story is told reflects the problem of the primitive Church whether to accept non-Jewish converts. Everyone who believes may eat from the Lord’s table and is fed more than crumbs.
General Intercessions
– That there may be room in the universal Church for the cultural riches of various peoples and for manifesting one and the same faith in a variety of languages and forms of expression, we pray:
– That we may have open hearts and homes for people who are hard to accommodate: strangers and refugees, the jobless and the poor, victims of discrimination and oppression; that we may do all we can to integrate them into the human and Christian community, we pray:
– That all of us here may be concerned about those who are not here because they are estranged from the Church, that our lives may reveal Christ to them, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord God, Father of all,
you set the table of your Son
for all who are willing to come:
for saints and for sinners,
for the poor and the rich.
Give us your Son, Jesus Christ.
May we learn from him
to give to all those who ask for food or love
not meager crumbs or leftovers
but the food of ourselves,
as Jesus does here for us,
he who is our Lord for ever.
Prayer after Communion
God our Father,
in this Eucharist, we have all been one
in Jesus Christ, your Son.
He died and rose to life for all;
his likeness is reflected
in the face of every human being:
let it become visible in all.
Let his face not be marred or divided
by our prejudices and fears.
Do not allow our love to be less than universal,
and unite us more in him
who is our common way to you and to one another,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Blessing
Music from one instrument can be beautiful, but the most beautiful form is found in the harmony of many different instruments together in one symphony, or many human voices blending in one chorus. May God give us the symphony and chorus of many cultures and peoples together, with the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
