On the Sunday preceding the beginning of the Triodion period, we hear the Gospel reading of the Canaanite Woman. Jesus has traveled to the land of the Gentiles in Tyre and Sidon. There, he encounters a woman whose daughter is in need of healing from the demon that is afflicting her. Jesus reponds that the priority of His ministry is directed toward the people of Israel, and that "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

This saying of Jesus' may appear shocking at first. It seems that Jesus is referring to this woman using a slur, calling her by the name of an unclean and comtemptible animal. In fact, this is not what Jesus is doing; instead, he is using a simple analogy to illustrate the priority of His ministry.

It was not uncommon at the time for the people of Israel to refer to Gentiles as "dogs," as unclean animals that would often be seen begging in the streets. The Greek word that was used in these cases was κύων (kyon), the common word for a dog. The use of this word to refer to the Gentiles does reflect the prejudice that the people of Israel had against outsiders. Jesus, on the other hand, rejects the use of this negative language, and instead uses the word κυνάριον (kynarion) in today's Gospel reading. This word refers, not to an unclean stray dog in the streets, but instead to a family's beloved pet.

Jesus, then, is not directing contempt at this woman for being a non-Jew. Instead, he is saying that the priority of His ministry at that time was to the people of Israel, just as a parent's first priority is to feed their children. The woman responded to Jesus with faith that, whatever amount of grace was being given to the people of Israel, it would be enough for her as well. Jesus sees and makes an example of the greatness of her faith, and her daughter is healed.

The Church puts this Gospel reading before us today to teach us about the abundance of grace that comes from Jesus Christ. This grace was enough to fill both the Israelites and the Gentiles in Jesus' day, and it remains enough to fill each of us today with His light and His love. This grace feeds us and strengthens us as we begin our approach to the Great Fast of Holy Lent.

Saint Leo I the Great, Pope of Rome (440-461), received a fine and diverse education, which opened for him the possibility of an excellent worldly career. He yearned for the spiritual life, however, and so he chose the path of becoming an archdeacon under holy Pope Sixtus III (432-440), after whose death Saint Leo was chosen as Bishop of Rome in September 440.

These were difficult times for the Church, when heretics assaulted Orthodoxy with their false teachings. Saint Leo combined pastoral solicitude and goodness with an unshakable firmness in the confession of the Faith. In 448, when Saint Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, summoned Eutyches, an archimandrite in Constantinople, to give account for his teaching that there was only one nature in Christ after the Incarnation, Eutyches appealed to Saint Leo in Rome. After Saint Leo had carefully examined Eutyches's teachings, he wrote an epistle to Saint Flavian, setting forth the Orthodox teaching of the person of Christ, and His two natures, and also counseling Flavian that, should Eutyches sincerely repent of his error, he should be received back with all good will.

At the Council held in Ephesus in 449, which was presided over by Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria (and which Saint Leo, in a letter to the holy Empress Pulcheria in 451, was the first to call "The Robber Council"), Dioscorus, having military might behind him, did not allow Saint Leo's epistle to Flavian to be read, although repeatedly asked to do so; even before the Robber Council was held, Dioscorus had uncanonically received the unrepentant Eutyches back into communion.

Because Saint Leo had many cares in Rome owing to the wars of Attila the Hun and other barbarians, in 451 he sent four delegates to the Fourth Ecumenical Council, where 630 Fathers gathered in Chalcedon during the reign of Marcian, to condemn the teachings of Eutyches and those who supported him. Saint Leo's epistle to Flavian was read at the Fourth Council, and was confirmed by the Holy Fathers as the Orthodox teaching on the incarnate person of our Lord; it is also called the "Tome of Leo."

He knew the time of his death beforehand, and he prepared himself, with forty days of fasting and prayer, to pass from this world into eternity. He died in the year 461 and was buried at Rome. His literary and theological legacy is comprised of 96 sermons and 143 letters, of which the best known is his Epistle to Saint Flavian.