The others

Image: The Canaanite Woman asks for healing for her daughter

Naskh is the caligraphic style for writing in the Arabic alphabet that the biblical text is written in for this manuscript.  The artist, Ilyas Basim Khuri Bazzi Rahib, was most likely a Coptic monk in the late 17th century in Egypt. 1684 from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Sunday 16 August 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Isaiah 56:1-7 Psalm 67(66)

Romans 13:13-32 Matthew 15:21-28 (See also Mark 7:24-30)

Meditatio:

‘I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.’ (Isaiah 56:8)

Commentary:

The second part of this Sunday’s Gospel presents us with a challenging encounter. We find Jesus in the region of Tyre and Sidon, territory that would have been considered foreign by many of his fellow Jews. In Matthew’s Gospel, this episode follows immediately after a dispute between Jesus and certain Pharisees and scribes concerning the observance of the Law, particularly ritual practices of purification.

Into this setting comes a Canaanite woman, a foreigner, who approaches Jesus and begins crying out for help. She is not one of the chosen people of Israel, yet she recognises in Jesus a source of hope and salvation. Her plea raises an important question: why should a devout Jew respond to the request of a foreign woman? At first, Jesus appears not to answer her. Then, when he does speak, his words seem surprisingly harsh: 'It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs'.