Who Let the Dogs Out
My closest friends and I are quickly approaching the half-century mark, and for most of us, our lives revolved around the Catholic parish and parochial school system. In fact, many sociologists believe we Gen-Xers might be the last generation where one’s church community held a good amount of sway over the formative years of our educational and social upbringing.
Be that as it may, I am a rarity among my peers these days. And I don’t just mean because I became a priest. I can count on one hand those who I grew-up with who have remained with the Catholic Church.
The abuse scandal has had a lot to do with many drifting away, of course, and the pandemic was no friend, either. One friend left when he came out in college, believing the Catholic Church to be a hateful organization that wanted no parts of him since he fell in love with another man. A close female friend terminated a pregnancy in her earlier years, and she too believes she is no longer welcomed here.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And that’s what breaks my heart most of all – perhaps yours, too. Those who need to be here feel as though they wouldn’t be welcomed back because of life choices or beliefs they hold onto. And to be fair, most of these values are not found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
So, if the Church rule-breakers are gone, some would say, “Good riddance. You don’t want to follow the law, there is no room for you here in these pews.”
But what if one of those rule-ignorers was your own child? What if he or she was the one lying at home possessed by evil, chained by sin, or lost and drowning in the confusion of contemporary culture?
Would you just abandon your very heart and life to the darkness that just keeps eating away at their peace, their life, their eternal soul? Or would you be like the mother in today’s Gospel account (Matt 15:21-28) and fight for your child’s very salvation?
I won’t lie: I love this Mom in Matthew’s account, maybe even more than I love Jesus’ response and reaction to her, at least in the initial encounter. He seems harsh; unbendable; unfeeling toward a woman’s anguish for her girl. The Jesus I know and love doesn’t ignore outsider-Gentiles. The Jesus I know doesn’t call anyone a “dog” for being something or someone other than a believing Jew.
And yet, the more I sit with this passage, the more I am coming to believe Jesus didn’t think the Gentile mother was a dog unworthy of help either. Maybe – just maybe – he was echoing the spoken-and-often-unspoken sentiments of those around him, including his very own disciples, who didn’t think an outsider deserved mercy, healing, time or attention.
Could it be that Jesus was echoing their inner judgmental thoughts? It was they who held to the belief that Mom and her daughter were “dogs” because they were unclean, non-Israelite sinners. “Send her away,” for she doesn’t belong here.
It gives me pause. Hopefully for all of us as a parish community, it also makes us think. Who are not in these pews that should be? Who would we say doesn’t belong here in the Catholic Church anymore because of their political beliefs, their attractions, their past decisions, and their ways of approaching faith and religion? Who are the “dogs” of our day and age?