SCRIPTURE READINGS
Twentieth Sunday, August 16, 2026  

Biblical Readings Online Here 
(Year A in the three-year cycle of readings)

What does it mean to be among “the elect” and how we should think about “the others.” Though in today’s excerpts, Isaiah welcomes “foreigners” into Israel, and Jesus heals the daughter of the “Canaanite [i.e., non-Jewish] woman,” distinguishing the “elect” and the “non-elect” troubles many who value equality and inclusion and overlook differences in religion. But identity need not be forged in opposition to others, outsiders need not be disrespected, and the blessings of a particular identity can extend generously outward.  

Isaiah addresses returnees from sixth-century exiles in Babylon and Egypt who have come back to a devastated city and a depressed economy. The returnees, however, found others occupying their cities and lands. Did these “others” also belong to the Lord? Shouldn’t only those who have long observed Israelite laws and customs be considered true Israelites? 

Outsiders could become members of Israel by observing Israelite customs and laws. Even those previously excluded would have their “burnt offerings and sacrifices . . . acceptable on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  

Jesus in Matthew also accedes to the Canaanite woman’s request for a cure for her daughter. Jesus’s cold dismissal of her may discomfit modern-day ecumenists. But Jesus saw himself as sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matthew 10:6; 15:24). As Raymond E. Brown writes, “As incredible as it may seem, such a fundamental issue as whether one should proclaim the kingdom to Gentiles, and whether they had to become Jews was not detectably an issue solved by Jesus in his lifetime,” (Christ in the Gospels of the Liturgical Year, 318). The woman stands before Jesus, refusing to give way. Jesus’s cold silence turns into genuine admiration, “‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed from that hour.” 

“In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, [the Church] considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.» So begins Vatican II’s 1965 historic Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aetate). Debated at the time, it is now prized as a gift from the God who created the world and all its people.

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.