CATECHUMENATE SESSION
20^TH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME

ISAIAH’S CHALLENGE TO RETURNING EXILES
JESUS STORY: ANOTHER WOMAN WHO DOESN’T KNOW HER PLACE?
TEACHING: SACRAMENT OF ANOINTING OF THE SICK

We welcomed a new person on her journey to becoming Catholic. We introduced my new teammate, Dave Bott, who joined the RCIA team. He’s learning how to facilitate the journey by seeing what I do.

Honoring our own experience: We began with a reflection taking us back to when we were in grade school. Our focus was: have we ever experienced what it was like to be left out as a kid? Were we ever treated as one who “didn’t belong” or “didn’t fit in” with some group at school? Each of us told a story of an experience of that we had. 

ISAIAH: We read the passage from Isaiah. Isaiah makes it clear that the God of Israel welcomes people from “the nations”. Can you say “Gentile”? What’s going on here? Isaiah is speaking to people who know what it’s like to be “outsiders”. They still had vivid memories of the Babylonian Captivity. In Babylon, under Ezekiel’s leadership, they developed the “synagogue”, a “meeting place”, a way to “assemble”. In these “assemblies” they heard God’s Word proclaimed and this kept their hope alive. They eventually returned to their homeland in Palestine, the land of Canaan, which they had taken from the Canaanites. So for them the Canaanites were one of the “nations”. So Isaiah is telling them something about God’s view of the Canaanites.

MATTHEW: We watched the visual bible video, which brought to life the unexpected approach of this CANAANITE WOMAN pleading with Jesus to heal her daughter. Is the  point starting to become clear? First, any CANAANITE was viewed as less than human by a Jew in those days. Second, WOMEN did not speak in public, and for sure did not address a man in public. SOCIAL RULE #1 WOMEN DON’T SPEAK IN PUBLIC.

So what is Matthew doing here? Like Isaiah tried to do above, Matthew is saying to his Jewish Christian community that Jesus has a big challenge for them as Church. If it’s not so good to be ignored, left out, treated as less than human in grade school, it doesn’t get any better if that happens when you’re an adult. Matthew is telling his church to break some key SOCIAL RULES because they make people blind to other people. Jesus says to the Canaanite Woman/Mother….Great is your faith….your child is healed. Go in peace. Matthew daring shows Jesus breaking the SOCIAL RULES of HIS OWN KIND to let this OUTSIDER change him.  St. Francis got it in his day when he embraced the Leper and let that OUTSIDER change him. Conversion is a challenge to us all since we all need to be healed of our blindness, especially the inability to see certain people because of the SOCIAL RULES of our times.

SACRAMENT OF ANOINTING: We shared insights into the wisdom of the Catholic Tradition when it uses touch….laying on of hands, and oil to embody the healing touch of Christ. We shared an article from the Journey series explaining that tradition.