NOTES for Mat 15:21-39
Once again the Gospel repeats the account of Jesus distributing bread to the people, and now it speaks clearly about the inner meaning of what is taking place. Between the two accounts of meals, we encounter a person for whom receiving from Jesus even the remnants of this bread means receiving renewed life. She is a pagan woman who asks for life not for herself, but for her dying daughter. Outwardly, her dialogue with Jesus resembles a contest of wit: Jesus sketches a brief parabolic scene (the dogs and the children), and the woman skillfully enters into His imagery, thereby proving her right to the “crumbs of bread.” In reality, however, Christ praises her not for a clever answer, but for her faith, because what happens to her is precisely an act of faith: she recognizes in Jesus the One Who gives the bread of life. In her grief and need, Christ's words about the heavenly bread, which the disciples understood with such difficulty (cf. Jn 6), become entirely clear to her, and she touches the mystery of salvation, the mystery of the bread of life—Christ.