This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
The lineage of my Christianity traces back through France–Frankreich, Gaul, Gallia–the barbarian nation conquered by the empire that also conquered the chosen people of God, Israel, the nation of Jesus. (A Roman named Dionysius brought us the message of Jesus, and we thanked him for it by separating him from his head.)
To Jesus, I am a foreigner. We are all foreigners. From the day Adam and Eve were ejected from the garden of Eden, we are no longer natives–we are foreigners.
Today’s first reading talks about how God will accept foreigners (not just Israelites) if they keep to His covenant. Paul talks about bringing the Israelites who rejected Christ to belief in Him through jealousy of the Christianity received by foreigners. In the Gospel, Jesus initially denies a foreigner, a Canaanite, the benefits He has reserved for Israel, then grants her those benefits in admiration of her faith in Him (and her single-minded love for Her child, which helps her surmount His initial feint at rejection).
Jesus Christ calls us to the greatest exaltation, like what we saw yesterday in Mary at the Assumption; He calls us to the most profound intimacy with Him–no less an intimacy than that proper to the Blessed Trinity itself.
But He calls us as foreigners.
As long as we are sinners, we do well to approach Him, not with the attitude of entitlement of a son or daughter, but with the deference of a poor foreigner approaching the opulent throne of a great lord. While indeed, He offers us everything, He owes us nothing. When we ask Him to help us overcome our sin and reach our full potential, we come as beggars.
This attitude should in no way mitigate our confidence or cause us to distance ourselves from Our Lord; rather, it should fill our confidence in Him with greater wonder and gratitude. As we approach Him over and over as the prodigal son, the child turned foreigner, He unexpectedly embraces us once again as His very own. He calls us not servants, but friends. He makes us again children of the Father. He showers upon us the choicest of His gifts, when we merely ask in faith and trust, like the Canaanite woman.
And He can teach us to do the same with others around us whom we may be inclined to disdain, who to us appear as foreigners…
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Approach the Lord as a foreigner; thank Him for His love and friendship; ask Him never to let you take them for granted, as a child might take for granted the wealth of its parent. Ask always to remember that the divine intimacy that He offers you comes in spite of your status as sinner, as a self-exiled foreigner. And ask Him to help you treat others with the same embracing mercy.
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