Homily 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A I Homily 16 August 2026 Year A
16 Aug Isaiah 56:1,
6-7; Romans
11:13-15, 29-32;
Matthew
15:21-28
My dear
friends today we celebrate the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A. Today’s readings remind us that God’s mercy has no boundaries and
His love leaves no one outside—but learning to trust that mercy often
requires us to cross the boundaries we have built in our own hearts.
The first
reading taken from the prophet Isaiah comes from the period after the
Babylonian exile, when the Israelites had returned to Jerusalem and were trying
to rebuild their community and identity. Having suffered so much, there was a
temptation to protect themselves by keeping outsiders at a distance. But Isaiah
presents a different vision of God’s people. God says, “Maintain justice and do
what is right.” He then makes an extraordinary promise: foreigners who love the
Lord and keep his covenant will be welcomed into his house. Their offerings
will be accepted, and God’s house will be called “a house of prayer for all
peoples.” God’s family is bigger than our boundaries. God does not
ask first, “Where are you from?” but “Do you love me and walk in my ways?”
Belonging to God is not primarily about race, background, status or origin; it
is about faithfulness and a heart turned towards God. God does not merely
tolerate the outsider—he brings the outsider to the center. The foreigner
is not given a second-class place but is welcomed into God’s own house. This
reading poses a challenge before us today – Is there someone whom we have kept at
the edges of our parish, community or heart? Sometimes the person we exclude
may be the very person God wants us to welcome. The
Church must become a place where people encounter not our barriers but God’s
welcome. The Church
becomes truly God’s house when nobody feels that they have to stand outside.
In the
second reading taken from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, St Paul
reflects on the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. Paul himself is an
apostle to the Gentiles, yet he deeply desires that his own people, Israel, may
also recognize God’s saving work in Christ. He reminds us that God has not
abandoned them: “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” This is
a powerful statement about God’s faithfulness. Human beings may change, fail,
or turn away, but God does not withdraw His love or cancel His promises.
His relationship with us is not based on our perfection but on His mercy. Paul
then makes an even deeper point: God has allowed all people to experience
disobedience so that He might show mercy to all. Salvation, therefore, is not
something we earn or possess exclusively. It is a gift of God's mercy. This
challenges us to look at people differently. We can easily label others as
“good” or “bad,” “deserving” or “undeserving.” But God sees everyone through
the eyes of mercy. Sometimes our greatest spiritual danger is not sin
itself, but believing that God's mercy belongs to us more than to others. The
Gospel invites us to become channels of the mercy we ourselves have received.
The question before us is: Whom have I stopped believing God can still
reach?
A Canaanite woman comes to Jesus with a prayer
of desperation: “Lord, help me!”. Her daughter is suffering, and a mother’s pain gives her courage to
cross every boundary. She is a foreigner, a woman and a Canaanite—someone whom
Jewish society regarded as an outsider. Yet she approaches Jesus because she
believes that mercy is possible. And then comes the difficult part of the
Gospel. Jesus seems silent. The disciples want her sent away. Jesus says, “I
was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” When she continues to
plead, Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to
the dogs.” What does Jesus mean by “dogs”? In ancient times, Greeks and
other Gentiles were more comfortable keeping dogs as household pets than many
Jewish people were. The Greek word Jesus uses is kynaria, which refers to small household
dogs or pets, rather than wild or scavenging street dogs. Dogs could be treated as part of the family
and were sometimes fed while the family was eating. This helps us understand
the woman’s reply: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall
from their masters’ table.” In other words, she is saying: “I am not asking
You to take anything away from Israel. I believe that Your mercy is so abundant
that even a crumb of it is enough to save my daughter.” God’s blessings are
not limited to one group. There is enough of God’s mercy for everyone. And
Jesus responds: “Woman, great is your faith!” This raises a deeper
question: Can our faith change the mind of God? The Gospel seems to
present Jesus as moving from refusal to granting her request. We must be
careful, however, not to imagine God as someone who has to be persuaded to
become merciful. God is already mercy. Prayer does not manipulate God; prayer
opens us to God. Sometimes, therefore, prayer is neither simply surrender
nor simply fighting with God. It is both. Like Jacob wrestling with God,
or Jesus praying in Gethsemane, we bring our deepest desire before God: “Lord,
this is what I desperately want.” But finally, we place it in His hands: “Yet
Your will be done.”
The woman refuses to allow the
boundaries people have placed around God's mercy to become boundaries in her
own faith. Her
faith teaches us to pray boldly without becoming presumptuous, to struggle with
God without losing trust, and to surrender without giving up. Perhaps today we need to learn something from
this woman. When God seems silent, will I still pray? When I feel like an
outsider, will I still approach Him? And when I have received God's mercy, will
I allow others to receive it too? Let us remind ourselves that God's table is bigger than our tables. God's mercy is bigger than
our mercy. And God's family is bigger than our boundaries. May God bless us all.
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