Sublime

(Matt. 15:28). Whatever else is going on in this passage (and there have been many suggestions), he clearly succeeds in bringing the encounter to an exemplary close. Perhaps he deliberately provoked her in order to draw her out and publicly demonstrate the insight and tenacity he knew she had.

On the cross he was all alone, surrounded by criminals and the jeering crowds. He had come for the express purpose of bringing peace to the enemies of God. So Christians, too, belong not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the midst of enemies.

This beatitude puts those Christians entirely in the wrong who, in their mistaken anxiety to act rightly, seek to avoid any suffering for the sake of a just, good and true cause, because, as they maintain, they could with a clear conscience suffer only an explicit profession of faith in Christ;

That is why these Beatitudes are so searching. They tell us, in effect, that as we live our ordinary lives we are declaring all the time exactly what we are.

If you must work with earthly treasures in your job, then guard against their appeal and don’t become a slave to them. Instead, set your sights on the treasures that are waiting for you in heaven. Those are real treasures that moths and rust can’t touch. They can’t be destroyed or stolen.”

(Gal. 1:10).