Memorial of Saint Dominic, priest
Hope is a word we use quite often, yet I was confounded as I tried to think of how to define it. Still it was the word that kept coming to me as I prayed with the readings today. Ironically, it is not a word that appears in the scriptures the Church has chosen for today’s Memorial of St. Dominic.
Dominic certainly lived at a time in Church history when hope was needed. There was a strong influence of heretical thinking gripping the Church at the time that he became ordained a priest. He realized that this heresy who’s teaching of extreme asceticism and dualism seemed in contrast to the Church at the time. While the heresy demanded people live chaste lives and partake in only minimal food and drink. The common people witnessed a clergy that lived in a far less austere manner, thus their preaching had little effect. Dominic knew if he hoped to witness to the people he had to live very simply in order to be heard. Within a decade, his itinerate austere preaching rekindled the faith of the people.
In a similar way, Jeremiah reminds the tribes of Israel of the love of the Lord. Jeremiah promises the people that God will restore their faith and rebuild their communities if they exalt in the Lord. He challenges them to remember the one who delivered them from slavery; and assures them that their faithfulness will be bear abundant fruit. Who in our lives calls us back into right relationship with the Lord? How do we respond to call, with hope or with resistance?
In the gospel we find hope in a curious place, in a gentile, a Canaanite women. Paradoxically, it is the disciples and Jesus we find resistant. It is with faith and hope that the woman persists in asking Jesus to heal her daughter.
Lord, send upon us Your spirit of strength, so that we may follow the example of these Saints. Then our hopes will come to fruition as we are gathered into the one eternal flock. Amen
Amen!
- -Michael Montgomery