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Gospel: Mark 7:24-30
Jesus went to the district of Tyre.
He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it,
but he could not escape notice.
Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.
She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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This is one of only two miracles in the Gospels that Jesus performs at a distance. In both cases, the person being healed is not physically present.
Today it’s a desperate mother who falls at the feet of Jesus, telling him that her daughter is being tormented by a demon.
In the ancient world, a “demon” could’ve been many things – something as mild as a temper, more serious like mental illness, or actual demonic possession.
We don’t know what the case was, only that this little girl needed help.
The second miracle Jesus performs at a distance is the healing of another child, Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter. Interestingly, both children are Gentiles, not Jews.
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Why would Jesus heal a Gentile? And why from a distance?
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To emphasize two things:
First, Jesus came to save all people.
Second, healing a person from a distance re-enforces the intercessor’s faith – in both cases, it was the faith of the parent that saved their child.
This Gentile mother has no proof that her daughter has been healed other than Jesus’ words, “You may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
Yet that was enough, which is why the Lord says elsewhere, “Not in all of Israel have I found such faith.”
Only from a Gentile.
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So, what does this mean for us?
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Just as the Lord healed children at a distance, all we need to experience his power from on high is a strong intercessor, or better, a heart filled with faith.
As it’s written in the Letter of Saint James, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful indeed.”
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Image credits: (1) iStock (2) A Parent’s Faith, Joy Margetts (3) Studio Now