[00:00] ♪ Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Church gives us a powerful message. God's mercy has no borders. His love is not reserved for a particular race, nation, family, or group.

[00:33] God's mercy is offered to everyone who comes to Him with sincere faith. The first reading reminds us that God will bring even foreigners to His holy mountain. He says, "I will make them joyful in My house of prayer." God opens the doors of His house

[01:03] to those who love Him, serve Him, and place their trust in Him. And in this gospel, we encounter a woman who desperately needed that mercy, the Canaanite woman. She had a daughter who was terribly tormented. We do not know exactly what her daughter was suffering from.

[01:36] But we know one thing, a mother was desperate because her child needed healing and deliverance. She comes to Jesus and cries out, "Lord, Son of David, have pity on me." Notice that she does not simply say, "heal my daughter." She says, "have pity on me." Because when a child suffers,

[02:09] the mother suffers too. I think that's one of you, the mothers who are here, you have experienced that one. I repeat, when your child suffers, the mother suffers too. Her daughter's pain had become her own pain. And here begins one of the most powerful lessons of the gospel.

[02:40] This woman refused to give up. Jesus remained silent. But she continued. The disciples became annoyed and said, "Send her away." "For she keeps calling out after us." But she continued. Jesus seemed to place another obstacle before her. But she continued. Finally, Jesus says something

[03:11] that is difficult for us to understand. "It is not right to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Humanly speaking, we might say, "that is enough." They rejected me. They humiliated me. I am leaving. If you heard this kind of word from Jesus, maybe humanly speaking, that's enough.

[03:41] I'm leaving. Because they discriminated against me, they humiliated me. But this woman did not leave. She answered, "Please, Lord, even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their master." What faith, what humility, what perseverance. And Jesus finally says,

[04:12] "Oh woman, great is your faith. It will be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this gospel teaches us something very important. Sometimes God seems silent. But His silence does not mean that He has abandoned us.

[04:45] There are moments when we pray, we do not see an answer. We pray for a child who is suffering. We pray for a marriage that is struggling. We pray for someone trapped in addiction or destructive habits. We pray for someone who needs healing. We pray for someone who needs deliverance from their vices,

[05:16] of whatever kind of diabolical attitude or infection, obsession, or possession. We need this to be delivered, to cast out the devil. We pray for someone who needs that. We pray for someone who has walked away from God. And after praying for a long time,

[05:46] we may ask, "Lord, where are You?" The Canaanite woman answers us, "Do not give up." When God seems silent, keep praying. When you are tired, keep praying, kneeling down in front of the Blessed Sacrament. When you have fallen, get up and keep praying.

[06:21] When you have prayed for someone's conversion for many years and you still see no change, do not stop praying. Because true faith does not mean believing only when everything is going well. True faith remains when we do not understand what God is doing. This woman possesses three beautiful qualities

[06:54] that we also need. Love, faith, and perseverance. First, she had love. She loved her daughter so much that she was willing to endure rejection and humiliation for her sake. Second, she had faith. She came to Jesus believing that He could do something

[07:26] no one else could do. The third, she had indomitable perseverance. For this woman, Jesus was not simply one possibility among many, Jesus was her only hope. Brothers and sisters in Christ, when we pray for healing and deliverance, let us not pray only with our lips. Let us pray with our whole heart.

[08:01] And let us say, "Lord Jesus, enter my family. Lord Jesus, heal the wounds of my heart. Lord Jesus, heal my children. Lord Jesus, deliver my family from everything that is destroying us. Lord Jesus, break the chains of sin,

[08:32] addiction, hatred, unforgiveness, fear, and despair." But we must remember something important. True deliverance begins when we allow Christ to reign in our lives. When you allow Christ to be at the center of your marriage life, when you allow that Jesus Christ govern in your family. And that's the reason that there's a group

[09:02] we call Corpus Pro Christ, between husband and wife, Jesus at the center. If you put Jesus at the center, there is no, yeah, there's a conflict a little bit, but not unlike those who are, that this was not center of their life. If you are a widow, handmaid of the Lord, after this I have to visit a group of Corpus Pro Christ in Boston, after the Holy Mass, to bless them.

[09:35] Hundreds of Corpus, it's very beautiful. We put Christ at the center to reign in our lives. We are not asking God merely to remove our problems, we are asking Him to transform our hearts and lead us into a new life. And there's another important lesson in this gospel, conflict. The Canaanite woman encountered conflict everywhere.

[10:07] She was a foreigner, the disciples wanted her to go away. She experienced silence, she experienced rejections, and yet she did not allow this conflict to become greater than her faith. Sometimes we do the opposite. We allow one offense to destroy our peace, especially those couples, little things.

[10:37] Maybe lack of sugar in your coffee or your food, then suddenly you got impatient. Don't allow this conflict or some obstacle to take the peace. No, and we allow family conflict to destroy our prayer life. No, maybe some misunderstanding,

[11:11] then I don't want to go to Mass because I'm upset. No, don't allow your misunderstanding to destroy your prayer life. We allow this disappointment to make us abandon God. Canaanite woman, this is us. Do not allow conflict to kill your faith. Do not allow another person to take away your hope.

[11:43] Do not allow your failures to convince you that God no longer loves you. Do not allow sickness to convince you that God has abandoned you. Keep coming to Jesus. Perhaps someone here today is saying, "Father, I have been praying for years and still do not see the answer." Look at the Canaanite woman.

[12:15] She keeps going. You keep going too. Perhaps you're carrying a wound that nobody knows about. Perhaps you are worried about your child. Perhaps you are suffering because of your marriage. Perhaps you are carrying a burden in your family. Perhaps you are fighting a personal battle that nobody sees. Bring it to Jesus and say with the faith of this woman,

[12:48] "Lord, have mercy on me." Even if all you can see is a tiny crumb of hope, do not despise it. Because in the hands of God, a small grace can become the beginning of a great transformation. Today, let us ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy.

[13:19] Mary knows our hearts. Mary knows our tears. She knows the struggle of our families. She knows the prayer we have repeated again and again. Let Mary teach us to remain close to Jesus. We do not understand to trust Him when we cannot see and to persevere when we are tired. And let us leave the Eucharist today

[13:51] with the certainty in our hearts, God is not finished with me. God is not finished with my family. God is not finished with the person for whom I am praying. Therefore, brothers and sisters, do not abandon prayer. Do not abandon your adoration. Do not abandon your rosary. Do not abandon faith. Do not abandon hope. The Canaanite woman persevered

[14:23] and she encountered mercy. May her faith become our faith. May her perseverance become our perseverance. And may her encounter with Jesus become our encounter with Christ, the one who heals, delivers, transforms, and saves us. Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.