“Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’” (Mt 15:22)
A woman shouted at Jesus: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” Sometimes we feel like shouting too. Wouldn’t we like to give voice to long buried frustrations and sorrows and needs unmet? Wouldn’t we like to bellow and cry and make the universe resound? Wouldn’t it be something if the pain and longing of all humanity could be cathartically released in a single all-encompassing groan? This is what comes to mind for me when I hear these words from Isaiah each Lent: “Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast.” (Is 58:1)
Perhaps we need more of the Canaanite woman’s nerve. After all, her prayer has become a classic. “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David” is one of the gospel texts behind the ancient prayer known as the Jesus prayer. Monks and lay people in East and West use this little prayer repetitively to keep them mindful of the merciful gaze under which we all dwell. As the Catechism puts it:
“To pray "Jesus" is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him. This simple invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. The most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners." It combines the Christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light. By it the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior's mercy. The invocation of the holy name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always.” (CCC 2666-2668)
What I notice about the Canaanite’s woman’s prayer is that though it has the form of a personal request – have mercy on me – it is clearly and urgently focussed on the need of another, her daughter who is tormented by a demon. Thus this Jesus prayer is not only an expression of one’s own sorrow or repentance, but naturally includes those of others as well. Without needing to change the form, the most personal of prayers can at the same time be for others, if the heart recognizes solidarity with those others.
Augustine speaks of this in his commentary on the Psalms: “ Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer. Who is speaking? An individual, it seems. See if it is an individual: I cried out to you from the ends of the earth while my heart was in anguish. Now it is no longer one person; rather, it is one in the sense that Christ is one, and we are all his members. What single individual can cry from the ends of the earth? The one who cries from the ends of the earth is none other than the Son’s inheritance. It was said to him: Ask of me, and I shall give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. This possession of Christ, this inheritance of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity that we are, cries from the ends of the earth. What does it cry? What I said before: Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer; I cried out to you from the ends of the earth. That is, I made this cry to you from the ends of the earth; that is, on all sides. Why did I make this cry? While my heart was in anguish. The speaker shows that he is present among all the nations of the earth in a condition, not of exalted glory but of severe trial.” (Commentary on Ps 60:2-3)
I never cry for myself alone. I never pray for myself alone. The liturgical form Kyrie eleison can sound a bit formal to be a cry from the heart, but Eleison me Kyrie, spoken (or shouted) in the person of all who cry out for mercy and salvation, is truly a universal prayer from the depths.
Image: The Scream, Edvard Munch, 1893
"I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."