In the Gospel today I feel compelled to admire the persistence and temerity of the Canaanite woman. She knows that she is an outsider yet she will not let anything stop her from getting to Jesus to put forward her request. Often we see people in the Gospel coming forward to Jesus to ask him for a favour however, on this occasion, the woman like Bartimaeus is so desperate that she is shouting. Like him she is disregarded as an inconvenience and others, who are closer to the Lord, discourage her. Also, like him, she has an incomplete sense of who he is calling him; "Lord, Son of David." (Mtt 15: 22) The Lord himself, initially, does not seem interested. Yet, the woman comes forward and kneels at his feet. Her rejoinder to his quip about throwing the children's food to the "puppies" earns even his admiration. All this goes to show that when we want something and have faith we will not give up easily. Did not Jesus tell us the parable of the importunate widow? (Lk 18: 1-8) We need to imitate the humility and persistence of the Canaanite woman so as to break though our own internal barriers of faith to a new level of trust in God and his care for us even when it seems, on occasion, that he doesn't seem to care?
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