>>These are powerful readings that we have this morning.  

The first, I guess, quick message is when you don’t get an answer from the Lord right away, don’t panic, don’t give up. Doesn’t mean our Lord has forsaken you. Doesn’t mean he’s not listening to you or is abandon you and that you’re doomed. I mean, that’s the message, obviously, the Canaanite woman has persistence here.  

She asks Jesus for a miracle, doesn’t receive any reply. Then the disciples finally say, “You know, get her away from us.” He says, “I’m not going to give her the miracle because it’s not right to throw what is holy to the dogs.” The woman doesn’t give up. So what Jesus is doing – I mean, there’s several things here – but he’s eliciting from her a deep love and a deep trust in needing her to be perseverant.  

Okay, so when you want something right away, trust that that instinct is good from God. Presuming it’s a holy desire. You ask God for it. You don’t get it, but you return to prayer time and time again. 

And as you return to prayer, what’s happening is your heart is expanding and your love is growing for the Lord. So that’s why it’s good sometimes to not get what we want right away so that we can have the relationship. And that’s always what it’s about, the relationship with God, not just amassing things, whether it’s health or possessions, whatever. 

Okay, so the petition puts us in relationship with God. Now, one thing we might petition for God is to have a sense of belonging. So the theme of these readings are: the Gentiles belong into Israel. You know, of course, the Gentiles were the non-Jewish people living in the Holy Land and Israel was a very sort of closed off society, if you will. 

I mean, they weren’t necessarily trying to go outwards to expand. They were hunkered down, focused on their own laws and principles and institutions. And anyone who wasn’t a Jew or wasn’t an Israelite, a foreigner, of course, didn’t belong and only didn’t belong, but wasn’t wanted, was undesirable. And so Jesus is breaking this mold. He’s going to this region, Tyre and Sidon, which is kind of the northern part of Israel, the Canaanite woman the Canaanites were sort of an indigenous tribe in the Holy Land. 

Not Jewish necessarily. And he’s getting her into the into the faith. And then Saint Paul, of course, is going to say, he’s the apostle to the Gentiles, Isaiah saying, “This is where my house of prayer should be, a house for all peoples. Okay, so we want our church to be for everyone, not just not just Catholics, not just, you know, practicing devout Catholics or not just people that, you know, pick and choose what they want, you know, for everyone that can fit in. 

And sometimes we have this tendency to want to be comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with that. We want to be around people who are like us. We want to be comfortable with like-minded individuals. But, you know, Christ doesn’t necessarily call us to have a comfortable life. He calls us to the challenged life. So if you don’t feel like you belong, let these readings be an assurance to you that you do for that very reason, that you don’t think you belong, you do belong. 

Or if you’re that person who does feel like they’re belong, and maybe thinking about others who don’t belong will pray that they come in again. We want to be a house of prayer for all peoples. The more people we have and the more different people we have in our church, the more beautiful, the more dynamic we’ll be. We’ll continue to expand and grow, and the Kingdom of God will come among us. Amen.