Reading the account of Our Lord’s encounter with the Canaanite woman in The Gospel of St Matthew (15:21-28), we might well be surprised by the tone of their exchange. Our Lord Jesus, whom we know to be the living embodiment of charity and tenderness towards the needy, seems to insult this poor woman mercilessly. First, she approaches Him crying “Have mercy, O Lord, Son of David!” and she explains that her daughter is severely possessed by a demon. What a terrible affliction. And yet Our Lord cuts her dead. The disciples urge Him to send her away, because she is making such a nuisance of herself. And when she kneels at His feet and implores His help, He replies that it is not fair to give the bread of children (He means the bread of the children of Israel) to dogs. It would be hard to imagine a ruder rebuke.
Once we are told the outcome of this extraordinary conversation, however, it seems that Our Lord was employing playfulness all along. For the Jews, the Canaanites were just about the most despised of all gentiles. In the Book of Joshua, we read that God had commanded the Jews entering the Promised Land to eradicate any Canaanites they discovered there, so that the moral depravity and superstition of these pagans might not contaminate and corrupt God’s Chosen People. In the days of Our Lord’s ministry, it was apparently usual for Jews to call descendants of any surviving Canaanites dogs.
In insulting this woman who approached Him, Our Lord was playing up to the caricature of how His fellow Jews, and His own disciples, might have expected Him to behave. Meanwhile He was allowing this female gentile – from a despised pagan tribe – to manifest her faith in Him. The call to Conversion, and Faith, are supernatural gifts from God. In addressing Him as “Lord” and “Son of David”, and in begging Him for mercy, she was manifesting her conversion to true religion, uniting herself in faith to the One Who has declared Himself to be the Way, the Truth and the Life.
In response to her conversion and her request, Our Lord praises her for her faith, and He Who possesses invincible authority over the whole of Creation, physical and spiritual, immediately frees her daughter from the demon that has taken possession of her soul.
It should come as no surprise that the woman’s daughter has been possessed by a demon. The Canaanites were idol-worshippers, and pagan practices predispose the soul to demonic influence, and sometimes even possession. The Fathers of the Church – those early theologians who unpacked and articulated the Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Apostles – taught that the idols of the pagans were infested with demons, who were all too ready to take advantage of those who opened the doors of their hearts to them in false worship.
It has been said that when men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, but rather become capable of believing in anything. The vacuum left by the retreat of true religion from so many areas of public life in our own society is replaced by ever more weird and not so wonderful forms of neo-paganism and nature-worship.
Our Lord warns us that the devil often disguises himself as an angel of light. Sometimes we can expect to find the demons lurking in the supposedly secular idols of diversity, equality and inclusivity – idols which have been enthroned in almost all of our once-venerable institutions, and to which we seem expected to render complete submission. But while the camouflage of the demons might adapt itself to the colours of the day, the intention of the fallen angels is always the same: to gain entry into our hearts, to distort and disfigure that divine image emblazoned on the soul which is the glory of every human being, and ultimately to deprive us of our salvation. Dabbling in the occult, by playing with Ouija boards and tarot cards, or consulting fortune tellers and mediums, is of course an open invitation to the devil to create havoc in our lives.
Too much interest in the demonic is unhealthy, and gives undeserved attention to the devil. For most of us it is enough to be aware of where the dangers lie and to avoid them like deadly poison. We should cultivate the friendship and the assistance of the Holy Angels, and especially our Guardian Angels. The fallen angels tremble in the presence of St Michael, and fell in terror at the invocation of the Queen of Angels, whose birthday we celebrate this month.
So what can we learn from the Canaanite woman in this Gospel account? First of all to be grateful, if we have been blessed with the gift of faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who frees us from the power of the forces of darkness, and Who heals us and makes us whole when we ask for His assistance. We also learn from this woman to be persistent in our prayers. If it seems that God is ignoring us, or even that He is treating us roughly and rudely, then we should never lose heart. Rather we should redouble our petitions, in the confidence that He hears us, and is purifying our Faith so that our hearts will be prepared to receive His blessings in full abundance.
Father Julian Large