Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be (“fiat”) to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
Where faith is great, the divine “fiat” can do what it has done from the beginning, and that is, create. “Fiat lux et facta est lux.” (“Let there be light, and there was light.”) Like God coming upon the formlessness and void, hovering over the waters, in divine silence, Jesus entered into the region of Tyre and Sidon, ran into this woman with her many negating influences – these demonic influences leading her soul to formlessness and void – and awaited her readiness for His gifts. What was that readiness? It was a heart not in rebellion against Him, but turned toward Him.
Of course, what turned her heart toward Him? Was it not He, Jesus Son of David, Himself? For that is what she cried out when she heard He was near. And her prayer, the Kyrie, was the Psalm acting on her. In the end she had as much to do with her daughter’s healing as the formlessness and void had to do with it’s own springing to life after God uttered the divine fiat on it.
The woman’s faith was simply the emptying of all reliance on Self, assuming the posture of all creatures whose “eyes look to you O Lord, and you give them their meat in due season.” It was a faith infants are best examples of, as Jesus showed.
What was great about it, but the greatness of this emptying of Self coupled with the greatness of the One Who utters the divine fiat.
“Let it be” as you desire. As the Psalm says, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” The woman most certainly delighted herself in the Lord, even when He was silent, when His church pushed her away, and when the Lord insulted her. Faith doesn’t let such tests detract from delighting in the Lord. Faith delights in the Lord when the Lord doesn’t seem to be responsive.
Isn’t that what a marriage is? He forgives us our sins; we delight in Him amidst His tests. But we never “give up” on each other. That might be a crude way to speak, but understood properly you see the point.
Another beautiful passage reflecting on this Gospel’s conclusion is, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.” The woman’s heart was sick. Her desire was for the demon to go away. When Jesus came, her desire came – again, the reason she didn’t allow Him to leave without having mercy.
And when Jesus uttered the “fiat,” the “let there be,” it was a tree of life. “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life.” And Jesus’ words were that, the very Tree of Life from the beginning that brought life into existence, “Let there be” light, firmament, lights, and all the items of creation.
Adam’s sin would return it all to the dust, a creation groaning under the fall, collapsing into non-being. But great faith presents the “materia” – our very burdened bodies and selves – from which the Lord will re-create His world. A world without demons and their influences.
Those who desire that, who ever pray “Lord, have mercy,” will be granted it. Faith accepts no other result. So the Canaanite woman taught us. Or better, so Jesus lifted up the Canaanite woman’s example to teach us.