Thursday, February 8 : Isaac of Stella

“Then Jesus went from that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon” (Mt 15,21). When “the Word of God, became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1,14) he “came from the Father and came into the world” (Jn 16,28). He “who was in the form of God” came forth from his fatherland to “empty himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2,6-7), “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rm 8,3), that he might be found by those who leave their own district to find him in the region of Tyre and Sidon… Let that Canaanite woman, then, come out from the interior of her district (Mt 15,22) to meet up at her country’s border with the physician who, of his own free will, has left his own region out of compassion. Graciously he comes in person into foreign territory to the sick child who would have been unable to approach him if he had remained in his own. For, insofar as he is God, the blessed, just and strong, he dwelt on high where wretched humankind was forbidden to ascend… And so, full of compassion, he accomplished what is fitting to pity: it was he who came to the sinner… Let each of us then, my brethren, likewise come out from the place of our own unrighteousness… Hate sin and, behold, you have left sin. When you hate sin you have encountered Christ in the place where he is to be found… But you will say that even this is a great deal for you and that, without God’s grace, it is impossible for you to hate sin and desire righteousness, not want to sin but want to repent. “Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness and his wondrous deeds to the children of men!” (Ps 107[106],8). Indeed, if it is by his grace that he visibly withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon where this woman could encounter him, it is also by grace that he secretly drew the woman from her most interior dwelling place… This woman symbolizes the Church, which was eternally predestined, called and justified in time and destined for glory at the end of time (cf. Rm 8,30). She prays without ceasing for her daughter, which is to say for all the elect.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team