Reflection

Just when we thought that Jesus’ love was all embracing and all compassionate, he shocks us by    behaving in a way that can only be described as harsh and unfeeling. In today’s gospel Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman, who pesters him to cure her daughter. ‘Canaanite’ was the name given to the older inhabitants of Israel who were dispossessed as unclean by Jesus’ own people. Jesus would not have been expected to fraternise with such a woman. True to     expectation, Jesus does not respond to the woman, explaining that he has been sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel … this woman is therefore not his problem! Could Jesus really have held this harsh opinion, or was he testing his disciples?