The readings of today's Liturgy from 1 Kings and Mark's Gospel show a contrast in attitudes.

In 1 Kings, a leader of God's chosen people, Solomon, should have been a model worshipper of the one true God. Despite having so many favours bestowed on him by God, Solomon chose, for reasons of state, to marry many foreign women and to worship their foreign gods as they did, thus ignoring the fidelity to God that was required of him. Since he encouraged those abominable places of worship and parlaying faith for worldly gains, his punishment was, after his death, the breaking up and the loss of all, except one, of his kingdoms.

In the Gospel reading from Mark, we see a different attitude on the part of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Her approach to Jesus was one of total belief and trust. Jesus' mission was to His own people of Israel who had a prior claim to the Kingdom of God. Yet when this pagan woman pleaded with Him, humbly and persistently to heal her daughter, He remembered His Father's plan was also to offer the Kingdom to the whole world.

He whose glory could not be hidden (v 24: "could not pass unrecognised") revealed His compassionate nature by getting rid of the devil in possession of the daughter, even from a distance. His saving power was proffered even for a gentile who never saw Him in person.