Many people come to Christ in search of relief and liberation from their suffering This is the case of the Canaanite woman. The apostolic work that Christ does with this woman is impressive, to the point of revealing a faith that was hidden in her heart. As is sometimes the case with many of us. She uses the pedagogy of insistence with Christ. The Canaanite woman does not worship God in a temple but on a mountain and does not share the same culture as Israel, and yet Christ sets her as an example of faith.
The Gospel proposes an experience of faith as adherence to the person of Christ. This is very important. The Canaanite woman, for example, speaks of faith as a life experience. One grows up living the experience of Christ with intensity, that is why this woman believes that Christ can heal her demonized daughter. Despite the apparent obstacles that Christ presents to her, she continues to insist.
The heart of the Canaanite woman merges with that of Christ in a single act of faith. This is the path that the Gospel points out to each one of us. This woman’s faith has nothing to do with routine, nor with mediocrity, and even less with boredom. It’s a living faith, which begs. It is an energetic faith, tested by Jesus Christ himself. It is a faith in Christ that truly moves. It is a faith that breaks with their cultural and religious traditions.
The faith of the Canaanite woman has nothing to do with a weak, legalistic faith, it breaks with the schemes that we have said before, rigid. Faith always produces fruit. But the fruits are produced when there is a true conversion. To stop looking at ourselves and look at God and this is what happened to the Canaanite woman, she changed before the presence of Christ.
We too, in our prayer, in the presence of Christ, have to change so many things that distance us from Him. The first fruit was the faith that performed the miracle of his daughter’s healing. Another change or conversion in the Canaanite was her humility. She accepted the apparent rejection of Christ, drawing from her heart an unusual faith in her. Therefore, united to Christ as the Canaanite woman we will bear fruit, and the first is our conversion. That conversion has to manifest itself in our faith. That faith that moves great obstacles as Christ says. To bear fruit of conversion is the law of love, it is the law of the Gospel.
Let us never be discouraged either by our sins or by our miseries. Let us never look back, that’s what the prince of lies wants. The saints are people who have believed in the love of the Father, have humbled themselves before Christ, recognizing their weaknesses. The saints are people like us. They had a face like ours, but with a look of mercy for others. But their faith in Christ was transparent in their own face, in their gaze.
Let us ask Christ to help us behave like the Canaanite. That the dialogue between Christ and the Canaanite woman is true prayer, must be the center of our lives.
Let us allow ourselves to do his work, the work of Christ in our heart. That would be our happiness.
