One time Jesus was taking a break and someone was bothering him. And not just any someone but a woman, a foreigner, a pagan. Jesus and his chosen twelve couldn’t do everything. Since they are only a few, they would concentrate their efforts on “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman persisted, wore Jesus down, he recognized her faith and intervened. The encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman expanded his mission because he heard the cry of the poor or, as Pope Francis puts it, went to the peripheries. Like a momma bear fighting for her cub she insisted and persisted. We must have an openness similar to that of Jesus to respond to those heart-felt needs all around us.
