<\/p>\n
“Blessed are they who fear the Lord”.\u00a0 That was our response, repeated several times this morning. \u00a0\u00a0Indeed, we hear all the great things that will happen to us if we fear the Lord.\u00a0 For example, we shall eat of the fruit of our handiwork; have many children; and see prosperity all the days of our lives- all because we fear the Lord.\u00a0 These images, and granted they are Old Testament images, were evidence of great favor in the culture of ancient times.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now the word “Fear” in this context means a healthy respect, rather than the kind of fear that is a terrifying horror.\u00a0 It is like the respect a young child shows his parents.\u00a0 Given the awesome power and overwhelming benevolence the child sees, they honor and respect every word, action, and facial expression of the parents.\u00a0 Their parents are their whole world to them.\u00a0 Even their cries can echo a sense of respect.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Syrophoenician woman in the Gospel is a person that fears the Lord in this sense.\u00a0 This woman respected the power of God that was entrusted to Jesus so much that she believed that whatever was left over from Jesus ministry to the people of God, the Jews- yes, even that little built, like the scraps children drop from the table would be more than sufficient \u00a0to heal her daughter, to heal her daughter of the presence of an unclean spirit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
If we could see a prayer dramatized- the lifting of a person’s mind and heart to God in a request to God to help that person, then the story of the Syropoenician woman is basically like that.\u00a0 It is a vision of how a humble, sincere prayer to God was heard and answered by God himself in real time.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many of us here this morning have similar dilemmas as this woman.\u00a0 We have a demon that needs to be cast out somewhere in our families or in our lives, and despite our best efforts, we can’t seem to get it done ourselves.\u00a0 It might be a big demon- like somebody’s addiction, a depression, or a financial disaster;\u00a0 or it may be a smaller demon; ;ike a bad personal habit or someone who is pestering us.\u00a0 But it won’t go away.\u00a0 And yet, if we fear the Lord, and bring our hearts and minds to God, He will answer our prayers, because “Blessed are they who fear the Lord”.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the 5th Week of Ordinary Time Gen 2: 18-25; Mk 7: 24-30 Dc. Larry Brockman “Blessed are they who fear the Lord”.\u00a0 That was our response, repeated several times this morning. \u00a0\u00a0Indeed, we hear all the great things that will happen to us if we fear the Lord.\u00a0 For example, we shall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}