Sermon 77B
Sermon 77/B
ON THE CANAANITE WOMAN
The Canaanite woman obtained a favor from Christ by persevering in prayer.
You know from the Gospel, brothers, how the Canaanite woman obtained by perseverance what she could not by a single request; and the Lord, by delaying her, was exercising her desire, not denying the benefit; for he knew where she would reach by asking, as he himself was teaching her to this end. First, she was called a dog by him; afterwards, woman, great is your faith. Having received the benefit, she departed joyful; but first she was changed, and then made joyful. How much changed? Made from a dog into a woman. And what kind of woman? One whose faith was great. Much was gained: in one moment, how much she advanced! For this reason, the Lord delayed, who said: Always pray, and do not give up. For it is the Lord’s command urging us to pray. Every day people pray; the devout do not neglect the times of prayer. For the Apostle also says: Always rejoice, pray without ceasing. This means: One ought always to pray, and not to lose heart. In another place, the Lord himself says: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. This is what the Canaanite woman did: she asked, she sought, she knocked, she received. But she did this that her daughter might be healed from a demon, and she deserved it; her daughter was made well from that hour. Would she have asked again after her daughter was healed? Until she received, she sought, asked, knocked; she received, was joyful, and departed. I do not know what it is, or rather, it is something great, for which it is necessary to always pray and not to give up. It is more than the health of the daughter, it is the immortality of life: this is what it is necessary to always pray for until the end, as long as life is lived here, until life without end is lived, where there will no longer be petition but exultation.
Other different prayers are not to be condemned.
Therefore, now we ought always to pray, and not lose heart. This one prays for this, that one for that; your prayers are diverse because your desires are diverse. All groan almost equally: but He who hears distributes the wills. One asks God, like that Canaanite woman, that the son who is sick may be healthy; a woman prays for her husband, a husband for his wife; they all pray for the sick: such a prayer is not to be reproached. Others pray, groan, intercede, seek, ask, knock, to become rich; and the greater the desire, the more ardent and frequent is such a prayer. And some even think that the Lord said this for this reason: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. The covetous man hears this, and daily asks for nothing else except to become rich. But, to be silent about the covetous man, the poor man hears this; he prays, asks, seeks, knocks, to become rich; and sometimes he spends much time, and finds no moment in receiving, and says to himself: What did the Lord mean by saying: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; for everyone who asks receives, and who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened? What have I done, miserable one, that I ask and do not receive? What shall we say to such a one? Did the Lord lie? Did the Scripture lie? By no means. Even avarice itself does not dare to say this: what therefore does greed not say, will piety say it?
God provides what helps, not what harms.
What then shall we say to that man? Ask still, insist still, knock still; because it is not said in vain: Everyone who asks receives. Pray as much as you can, ask, knock, persevere, and you shall be rich. He delays time in praying, he expires in poverty; he has received nothing, he finds nothing to leave to his children. Is then all the labor of asking, seeking, knocking lost? It is not lost. Therefore to such a man, not yet... living what is to be said, except: Change your prayer? And why do you ask, seek, knock, that you may become rich from being poor? Have you not heard the Apostle saying: Those who want to become rich fall into temptation, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and destruction? Behold what you were asking: but your Father, from whom you asked it, mercifully denied what you asked, lest you should fall into ruin and destruction. Behold, change your prayer. For even you do not give to your son what he has asked. What if your son asked for a knife with which to wound himself, or weeping, asked to be lifted onto a horse, would you do it? Would you dare? Is it not better for him to cry while safe, than to be mourned while injured? If therefore you, being greater, know how to give good things to your son, how much more does the Father, who is always good, provide for you when he does not give what you know not? It is necessary that you be a son; he does not despise you, be sure, son. Paul the Apostle, when he was buffeted by the angel of Satan, lest he be exalted, as he himself confesses - for who among us would dare to say such a thing about the Apostle? - said of the angel of Satan: For which cause I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me; and He said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness. Why indeed do you ask, O Paul? Is it not that it might be well with you? Leave the artisan to work how you do not know, that it might be well with you. Does the poultice hurt you when it stings? It is for you, for it heals. If therefore the Apostle Paul asked and was not heard, why are you sad when you are not heard? Perhaps indeed what you ask is not expedient for you to receive.
The devil was heard but not the Apostle.
It is a wondrous thing, my brothers: the Apostle asked, and he did not receive; the devil asked, and he received: the Apostle was not heard, and the devil was heard. O justice! Rather, great justice. And where, you say, was the devil heard? Did you not read, or did you not hear, the demons were heard and allowed to go into the swine? Or did you not read, or did you not hear, the devil asked the Lord to test His servant Job, and he received? A wondrous thing! The devil asked, and Job was delivered. Delivered, but to be tested; delivered, but to be tried; delivered, but to be examined, and to be recommended to posterity. The devil received him, but to be confounded. You see because it is not always good to receive what you ask for. Therefore, change your prayers, so you may securely receive what is good; change your prayers, amend your desires. I say this to those who desire temporal things to become rich.
It must be requested what Idithun was asking, whose words were sung.
See what Idithun was asking, whose words we sang: Hear, he says, my prayer, heed my tears with your ears. Was he asking for riches? Did he have a wound in his body, and was he asking for it to be healed? And where do we find what he was asking for, or in what desires he was exercising his prayers, or for what desires he was shedding tears, which he wanted to be heard? Where do we find his desire? Where, if not in his words? My substance, he says, is as nothing before you. Truly, however, all is vanity, every living man. And now what is my expectation? Is it not you, Lord? And my substance is always before you. A little earlier he said: And my substance is as nothing before you. Mortal substance is as nothing before you; but because after this life I will receive immortality, for which I want you to heed my tears, there will be immortal substance before you always. Behold the desire, behold what to seek, behold what to desire, behold what to pray for; behold what must always be prayed for, until we depart from here, and not to fail.
Pray and weep, hope to attain all that God has promised.
Perhaps one of you might say: What did Idithun mean by saying: "Hear my tears"? For tears are seen, not heard; tears flow, they do not sound. Truly, they have their own voices, just as the blood of Abel had its own voice. If the blood of the slain cried out to the Lord, then the tears of the one beseeching also do, absolutely. For tears are indeed the blood of the heart. Therefore, when you ask for eternal life, when you say: "Thy kingdom come," where you may live securely, where you may always live, where you may never mourn a friend, never fear a foe, when you ask for this, weep, shed your inner blood, offer up your heart to your God; this is what it means to pray and not give up; this is what the Lord's prayer teaches: "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," so that we may be equal to your angels. O desire! Who would dare to desire such a thing, if God had not deigned to promise it? Pray: what you ask for is great, but greater is the one who promised. It is difficult what he promised, for a man to become an angel, nothing difficult. But everything is possible for God. You think it is something great and difficult for a man to become an angel; does it not seem difficult to you, and much more difficult and much more incredible, that the Only-Begotten of God became a man? That a man should become an angel, man doubts, for whom God became a man! Do you doubt you will receive what you ask for, when you hold such a pledge, who deigned to freely make himself your debtor? You did not lend money or give some service to God. Do you not have anything that is not from Him, and that you are to receive also from him? He deigned to make himself a debtor, and what kind of debtor! He wrote the chirograph, gave the pledge. His chirograph is the divine Scripture; his pledge is the death of Christ, his promise is the death of Christ. He who gave the death of his Son to the impious, would he deny the death of his Son to the pious and faithful?
It should be asked not only with words but also with actions.
Be secure, brethren, you will receive: ask, seek, knock, you will receive, you will find, it will be opened to you. But do not ask, seek, knock only with voices, but also with conduct; perform good deeds, without which this life ought not at all to be led; with daily good deeds, erase sins. Do not despise even those light sins; although they may not be great, they accumulate, they make a heap; they amass and form a mass. Do not despise because they are minute, but fear if they are many. What is more minute than drops of rain? And with these many, fields are satisfied, rivers are filled. Do not despise your light and small sins, lest, having formed a heap, they weigh you down. Behold, the water of the sea gradually trickles through the cracks of a ship, and yet it fills the bilge; if it is not bailed out, it sinks the ship. However, if a large wave comes, like a mountain, it overwhelms the ship at once and destroys it; such are murders, that is, serious sins such as adultery, fornications, blasphemies, perjuries; they are great sins, they overwhelm at once. Those small sins, however, without which human life cannot exist, gradually enter through the cracks of human frailty and flow into the bilge. Imitate sailors, whose hands do not cease, and nothing remains in the bilge; let them not cease, I say, from good deeds. But again they flow into the bilge, because the cracks of human frailty remain; and therefore, let the bilge be bailed out again. For if your hands do not cease from bailing out with good deeds, that day will find you pure; and you will come securely to that life which Idithun longed for, when he said: "Receive my tears with your ears."
[Explicit sermon about the Canaanite woman].