By Father Casey

This week our nation remembers an important anniversary. 100 years ago, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, extending the right to vote to women. The fight for women’s suffrage stretched over several generations, as over 70 years passed between the famed Seneca Falls Convention and the ratification on August 18, 1920. A great many women and men had to show extraordinary persistence in pursuing this basic extension of civic equality.

Yet, we also know it was incomplete. For many women in our nation, the 19th amendment did little to change their basic reality. They were Black and lived in the Jim Crow South, which meant that with the amendment or not, voting remained entirely unavailable to them. So, even as we celebrate this important centennial, let’s not forget that it took an additional 45 years before the effects of the 19th amendment were experienced by all women, regardless of race. The widening of justice began 100 years ago, but the boundary of that justice had much farther to go before it was complete.

This weekend we’ll hear a gospel story that speaks to just this dynamic. Jesus visits the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, and there he encounters a Canaanite woman who begs him to have mercy on her sick child. Their conversation is hard to read, as it seems that Jesus is hostile to her appeal. He appears reluctant to extend the power and promise of the Kingdom to someone outside of God’s chosen people. Yet, she remains persistent. Yes, the people of Israel are God’s children of promise, but are she and her daughter not also deserving of the goodness and mercy of the Kingdom of God? Their back-and-forth reveals something profoundly important about the ever-expanding nature of God’s promise and God’s Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God, much like our nation, is in a state of becoming. As new people are included in its promises and possibility, it becomes bigger and more complete. That ever-widening circle began with the people of Israel, and extended outward to include every race, nation, and people. So we must be on the lookout for those who are still left out of its expansive embrace and pay attention to where justice is begun, but not yet complete. The Canaanite woman calls us to be those relentless, persistent seekers, not only on our own behalf, but also on behalf of all those who are still waiting for a brighter, better day.