Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 7:24-30
“Because of this saying, go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
And rising up, he went from there to the area of Tyre and Sidon. And entering into a house, he intended no one to know about it, but he was not able to remain hidden.
For a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit, as soon as she heard about him, entered and fell prostrate at his feet. For the woman was a Gentile, by birth a Syro-Phoenician. And she petitioned him, so that he would cast the demon from her daughter.
And he said to her: “First allow the sons to have their fill. For it is not good to take away the bread of the sons and throw it to the dogs.”
But she responded by saying to him: “Certainly, Lord. Yet the young dogs also eat, under the table, from the crumbs of the children.”
And he said to her, “Because of this saying, go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
And when she had gone to her house, she found the girl lying on the bed; and the demon had gone away.
What do the Fathers say?
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Victor of Antioch. Tyre and Sidon were places of the Canaanites, therefore the Lord comes to them, not as to His own, but as to men, who had nothing in common with the fathers to whom the promise was made.
For the time had not come for His dwelling with the Gentiles and bringing them to the faith, for this was not to be, till after His cross and resurrection.
Now by this the Lord wished to show His disciples that He opened the door of faith even to the Gentiles
PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE. But we should observe that this happened amongst the Gentiles, to whom it was not time to preach; nevertheless not to receive them, when they came to the faith of their own accord, would have been to grudge them the faith.
The Venerable BEDE. On account then of the humble and faithful saying of her mother, the devil left the daughter; here is given a precedent for catechising and baptizing infants, seeing that by the faith and the confession of the parents, infants are freed in baptism from the devil, though they can neither have knowledge in themselves, or do either good or evil.