Homily For Thursday Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Year B, 8th February, 2024. The Optional Memorial of Saints Josephine Bakhita. The International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking

Readings: 1Kings 11:4-13; Ps.106; Mark 7:24-30

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

 

LEARN TO ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE, THEN WORK HARD TO ACHIEVE WHO YOU DESIRE TO BE

In our society today, most people hardly accept who they are. These days people spend all their resources and energy trying to convince others of what they are not by seeking their approval. What happens is that, in the end, they will lose their nerves and other people will convince them that what they are doing doesn't have any value and because of that they give up their dreams. This is not the same with the Syrophoenician woman in our Gospel passage today, who when approached Jesus pleading for the restoration of her daughter did not give up even when her request was not granted immediately.

 

For we are told that Jesus entered a house in Tyre and Sidon and did not want to be recognized. It is then that this Gentile Syrophoenician woman came to him and prostrated herself before Jesus and begged him to exorcise the evil spirit in her daughter. But Jesus’ answer seems somewhat strange when he said:  “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”  However, the woman responded, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps. Her humble and powerful faith was immediately rewarded and her daughter was healed.

 

This story portrays the anticipation of the future faith of the Gentiles who will later become Christians. However, the irony of this passage is that, in Israel, Jesus was trying to convince people that he was the Messiah, as he was being challenged to prove it with a sign. But here in Gentile territory, he met a woman who was convinced he was the Messiah and he could not discourage her efforts. Nonetheless, his apparent attempt to put her off was just a test, of which her great faith was proven by accepting her humble background and persistence in her request.

 

She accepted the place of a “dog” as a Gentile in relation to Israelites being the chosen children of God to whom the message and grace of the Messiah came first. Though she accepted that she may not be able to sit down at the Messiah’s table and eat with the “children,” she should be allowed to pick up some of the crumbs of unmerited mercy and grace of God for the sake of her daughter.

 

Dear friends,  we must learn how to humbly accept who are and be more persistent in our quest and desire for something. We must stop wasting valuable time trying to prove who we are not, let us first accept who we are in faith, then, work hard to improve who we want to be in relation to our faith in God. Let our faith in God help us to accept who we are. Whatever we want to do, let us have faith in God and ourselves, and be determined because, faith, determination and sacrifice are the secrets of any success in life.

 

Therefore, tell yourself today that you can get that which you desire, when you plan for it, and work every day for it, then you will begin to see a different face in the things you do. The truth is that people are rewarded in public for things they have done for years in private. So, let us learn from this Syrophoenician woman who accepted who she was and was determined with faith to achieve her dream through humility and persistence. Let us not be like King Solomon in our first reading who failed to remain faithful to God in his old age.

 

In the light, the Church today calls our attention to some ugly activities of human trafficking. This is important as we celebrate the memorial of St. Josephine Bakhita. She was a former slave from Sudan who was a victim of human trafficking. As a child, she had already suffered much, being captured by slavers and treated horribly as a slave passing on from master to master.

 

Bakhita had the fortunate chance to escape slavery through her former master, who was touched and converted by her virtuous life. So she eventually found her way to freedom and later joined the religious community in which she spent the rest of her life. So today, we are called to pray for victims of human trafficking and we should never engage ourselves in such ugly activities.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, the Syrophoenician woman accepted her humble background with great faith in your Son Jesus, as we humbly make a leap of faith today, with determination and sacrifice towards our dreams in life, may you grant our hearts desires through the intercession of St. Bakhita. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a blessed day.