NOTES for Mat 15:21-39

Today's reading again offers us two episodes that, at first glance, seem directly unrelated: the healing of the Samaritan woman's daughter (vv. 22-28) and the miracle of the multiplication of food, similar to the one described in the previous chapter (vv. 29-38; compare Matt 14:13-21). And yet there is a connection between them. That connection runs through the Kingdom, whose manifestation underlies the events described in both episodes. After all, both the miracles and the healings mentioned in the Gospel narratives essentially always speak of one thing: the Kingdom which, in the Savior's words, "has come near."