{"id":32919,"date":"2015-03-08T12:32:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T12:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=32919"},"modified":"2015-03-08T12:32:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T12:32:04","slug":"devotional-thoughts-for-the-sunday-of-the-canaanite-lady-4th-sunday-of-great-lent-8th-march-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=32919","title":{"rendered":"Devotional Thoughts for the Sunday of the Canaanite Lady (4th Sunday of Great Lent) 8th March 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"prayer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading: From the Gospel according to St. Matthew 15:\u00a0 21-31
\nDear and Respected Brethren,<\/p>\n

By the grace of God we are entering the fourth week of the Great Lent
\nof the year. In today\u2019s reading we come across with the cry, prayer
\nand faith of the Canaanite lady who sought the compassion towards her
\ndaughter who was vexed with a devil. She cried: \u201cHave mercy on me, O
\nLord, thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil\u201d
\n(Verse 22) The lady though a pagan by birth had identified our Lord as
\nthe son of David, who was supposed to be the savior of the entire
\nmankind.\u00a0 Not only she knew the identity of our Lord, but also she had
\ngreat and amazing faith in her knowledge. Our Lord did not turn to her
\nplea positively. Even after the intercession of the Apostles, our Lord
\ndid not favor her. Still she continued her prayer and earnest requests
\nin high volume. She did not get back until she was favored by our
\nLord. This sort of prayer is to be followed by us.
\nThis Canaanite lady is a good teacher for us who often get overjoyed
\nover the tradition, and similar claims, she teaches how we must
\ninteract with our Lord and Savior. First thing to be remembered is
\nthat we must cry when we might approach our Lord God. She cried
\nsincerely and it enabled her to achieve what she wanted to have. When
\none might cry, our voice of the cry would be followed by tears from
\nhis or her eyes. Our Church fathers have given significant importance
\nfor the tears and it is often mentioned that the tears would be
\nconsidered as more precious than the costly jewels and pearls
\navailable in the world. Hence all who might observe the Lent are
\nsupposed to offer his or her tears before God.\u00a0 Tears often remind us
\nabout our sins and guide us to seek forgiveness of our sins. Tears
\noften purifies our eyes and enable us to have a perfect vision when
\nand where\u00a0 our eyes are not clear, our visions also would be fake and
\ngloomy The Canaanite lady had a deep and staunch faith. She believed
\nthat Lord Jesus was the Son of David (who had to reach to provide
\nsalvation.) Those who had waited for the Savior with hope and
\nexpectation also had believed that He would come from the tribe of
\nKing David.\u00a0 The prayer of the Canaanite woman was also so unique. She
\nprayed for the mercy. She earnestly requested Lord Jesus to have mercy
\non her.
\nThe Canaanite woman\u2019s tears, faith and prayer are exemplary and they
\nare guide lines for us who observe the great Lent to get our Lord\u2019s
\nmercy, compassion and blessings. Let us take her as a role model for
\nobserving the Lent and fasting. Let us also cry aloud to our Lord God
\nto save us by forgiving our sins and evil lives so far. The Canaanite
\nwoman might have cried in high voice. She was confident that she was
\nnot eligible to come near Lord Jesus. Still she did not get back from
\nher attempt.
\nThe Canaanite woman has been accepted by God Almighty as instrumental
\nto teach the world that the Savior is not only for a community or a
\nsmall group of the humanity. Till then it was realized by all that a
\nSavior would incarnate to save the Israelites. But God\u2019s plan was not
\nonly to save the Israelites, but also to save the entire mankind,
\nwithout any sort of limitations. There were no boundaries of faith,
\ncolor, language or so for God to grand the freedom from Satan and evil
\npowers. God rightly used the Canaanite woman to reveal the great truth
\nof the salvation of God is beyond any sort of limitations. Our Lord
\nJesus said to the woman, \u201cI am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
\nhouse of Israel.\u201d (Verse 24) When our Lord said so, the Canaanite
\nwoman came forward and worshipped Him, with the prayer \u201cLord have
\nmercy upon me.\u201d\u00a0 (Verse 25)\u00a0 Worship is the exhibition of obedience,
\nlove, respect and conviction. In addition to the three lessons we
\nlearnt from the Canaanite woman earlier; let us decide that we would
\nworship our Lord God without break in our future lives. In worship we
\nhave to surrender ourselves to His complete disposal. So the Holy
\nChurch insists us to do kumbideel (prostration) during our Lenten
\nprayers, where one could submit himself or herself to God\u2019s disposal.
\nWhen our Lord said \u201cIt is not meet to take the children\u2019s bread and to
\ncast it to dogs\u201d, she did not take it as a personal insult or abuse.
\nThere are few who\u00a0 She did not make it a complaint, where as she
\nidentified herself to the word uttered by our Lord. Her faith and
\nhumbleness enabled her to attain the great certificate from our Lord
\n\u201cwoman, your faith is great.\u201d Let us try to hear such a compliment
\nfrom our Lord God at the end of this Lenten season.
\nWhen our Lord declared: \u201cI am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
\nhouse of Israel\u201d, none of the listeners reacted or responded
\nnegatively or positively. But our loving God and Savior utilized the
\nopportunity to reveal and declare that He is the Lord and Savior of
\nall men and women other than the Israelites also.
\nLet us not forget the lessons we learned from the Canaanite Lady and
\nlet us adopt the cry, tears, faith and worship in our lives.
\nMay God bless us all<\/p>\n

Jose Kurian Puliyeril
\nKottayam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading: From the Gospel according to St. Matthew 15:\u00a0 21-31 Dear and Respected Brethren, By the grace of God we are entering the fourth week of the Great Lent of … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32920,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32919\/revisions\/32920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}