He answered her not a word.
St. Matthew doesn’t tell us why the Lord withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. St. Mark, in his slightly fuller account of the same incident, adds the detail that Jesus wanted to remain hidden there. At any rate, he certainly didn’t go to pagan territory in order to preach or teach or perform miracles. Why? Because Jesus was a faithful Jew, obedient to the law, as well as to his own mission from the Father. According to the law given to Israel, the Jews are a people set apart, a consecrated nation, a holy people of God. As the Psalm puts it: they are the sheep of God’s pasture, and the flock led by his hand (Ps 94/95:7). God chose them out from all the nations. His purpose was to prepare for himself a people from whom, in the fulness of time, would come the Messiah, the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Son of God. His name, said the Angel to Joseph, must be Jesus, for he would save his people from their sins (1:22). He would do that through the mystery of his Cross - through his saving death - through his sacrificial and cleansing blood - and through faith and baptism into him. Then, as we read in Ephesians, Christ’s death would tear down the wall of separation that divided Jews from Gentiles. Then Jews and Gentiles together would be reconciled to God in one body, as one new man, one holy temple for God in the Spirit (cf. Eph 2:14-22).
Meanwhile, as descendants of Abraham, and heirs of the covenant of Moses, the Jews were forbidden to mix with other nations. They were marked out as separate from the Gentiles, because they were dedicated to worshipping the one true God, and the Gentiles were not. So when Jesus sent out the Twelve on mission, he instructed them: Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (10:5). In the Sermon on the Mount he taught: Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine (7:6). Jesus must here have meant not only literal dogs and pigs, and also unholy people; people whose obdurate wickedness makes them no more receptive to divine grace than are unclean animals.
Then out came a Canaanite woman. By reputation the Canaanites were among the very worst of all the Gentiles. These people worshipped not just false gods, and idols made with hands, but actually demons; and accordingly they indulged in all manner of abominable practices. This woman’s poor daughter was doubtless afflicted in a particularly horrible way, but really the whole nation was in a certain manner possessed. The devil uses many seductive enticements to draw people to serve him, but in the end he is always a bad master. He hates, despises, envies us; and those who belong to him he will drag down to share in his own eternal misery.
There follows the dialogue between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Her great faith recalls that of the pagan Centurion whose servant Jesus healed at a distance (8:10). We could perhaps re-phrase the rebuff and even insult of Jesus in words he once spoke to his Mother: Woman, what to me and to you? My hour has not yet come (John 2:4). The time has not yet come when the risen Lord will say: Go and make disciples of all nations (28:19). But this excellent woman wittily and quietly persists, until like our Lady she obtains her request.
This incident is particularly important for St. Matthew. He wrote his Gospel especially for Jewish Christians, and they needed to be reassured that Jesus came not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them (5:17). Of course the point of the story is not so much the reluctance of Jesus to heal a pagan, as the fact that eventually he did so. And this too is important for Matthew, because being a tax collector he was counted, for all his Jewishness, with the pagans and the prostitutes (cf. 21:31). Yet Jesus, in his mercy, love and goodness, invited even Matthew to his table fellowship (9:9ff), and to his Kingdom, and then called him to be an Apostle, and an Evangelist.
The reconciliation of the Gentiles is no light matter. It cost Jesus his blood, and his life. St. Paul makes it a central element in his Gospel. In retrospect it makes sense of the whole story of salvation, beginning with Abraham, and the vocation of Israel. For us, who have been called out of the darkness, and into God’s marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9), it must be a cause of endless wonder, and thanksgiving, and joy. Surely part of the joy of heaven will be the constant realisation that none of us - not one! - has the right to be there, but we are there anyway, all together, and in perfectly secure possession, because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ our Lord. As St. Peter puts it: Once you were no people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (2:10).
Nowadays we live again, as it were, in the midst of a Canaanite culture: in the words of Isaiah, sitting in the region and shadow of death (Mt 4:16, Is 9:2). The devil reigns from his throne, apparently as if unchallenged, and many, whether knowingly or not, offer him their worship. Our part then is to be faithful; to walk ever more consciously with God, and in accordance with his law; to pray for sinners, and always to be ready to bear witness to Christ. He is our salvation and our hope; actually our only salvation, and our only hope.
And now once again he is coming to console his children; those who belong to him. He gives them honoured places at his table. He assures them of his presence, and of his love, and of his abiding mercy, by feeding them, once again, with himself; with the Bread of life (Jn 6:35), and the Cup of eternal salvation (Ps 115:4/116:13).