“Woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted.”  Mt. 15:21-28

We find ourselves once again with a fully human Jesus and a son of his historical circumstances. Jesus was an Israelite educated in his culture and religion. And the episode takes place in the land of “infidels”, according to the Israelite mentality. They believed that God’s favors were only for “the chosen people.” The Canaanite woman who asks for the healing of her daughter is suffering a lot because that girl was the most important thing in her life…not her homeland, not her religion. Everything shows that, in the love of that mother for her daughter, Jesus discovered her faith, which led her to insist, to question him, to change. He himself had made it very clear that love is the most important thing, it is the essence of the Good News that He had come to bring. This story reveals to us that what is definitive for Jesus is not religiosity, but humanity. Let us ask the Lord to give us that human quality that leads us to “love and serve in all things”.