There’s a common thread that runs through all of today’s readings from Sacred Scripture.  In the Isaiah, the Lord remarks that those who observe the sabbath and keep the covenant, even if they’re foreigners, will be pleasing in the sight of the Lord.  St. Paul makes a big deal of preaching to the Gentiles, people who were outside the home religious context of Judaism in which Christianity was growing up.  And Our Lord himself affirms the great and persistent faith and humility of the Canaanite woman; and Canaanites were not only viewed as outsiders, but in many cases even as political enemies of the Jewish people.  In each of the these three cases, God finds greater Faith in those outside the visible confines of the community than those within, and he celebrates the Faith that he finds. 

In each case, in one way or the other, the Lord invites the outsider into the life of the community.  In Isaiah for example, God says of the foreigners, “I will bring them to my Holy Mountain.”  So it’s not that the community itself is bad, or that we don’t need the community.  We do.  It’s an essential part of our experience of Faith, and it’s how God set things up.  He wants people to be inside the community of his Church, today.  But the point is: we can’t rest on our laurels.  Just because we are fortunate enough to have been baptized and raised as Catholic Christians, or in some of our cases, just because we are fortunate enough to have been led to the Faith and to the Church later in life, that doesn’t mean we’re automatically virtuous and righteous.  We still have to work at it.  In fact, to whom much has been given, much will be required.  Unlike people who might have completely justifiable ignorance about certain things, we don’t have any excuse for our bad behavior; we know!  We know how we ought to act.  We have Sacred Scripture and we have the moral teachings of the Church, and so we have tools to help us not fall into the traps of self-justification or explaining away our sins and our vices. 

It’s all connected to humility.  The Canaanite woman definitely does not have a sense of entitlement.  The farthest thing from it.  But she is humble.  And she has a desire.  A desire to know Christ and to be healed by him.  And she doesn’t even want the healing for herself; it’s for her daughter.  Humility and selflessness.  So, all of this should inspire us with gratitude for all that the Lord has given us, that he has invited us into his friendship and given us a home in his Holy Church.  We should also be inspired with humility, because those blessings we’ve received also call us to a higher, deeper, greater righteousness, to perfection in fact.  It’s okay that we’re far from that now.  If we keep turning to the Lord, if we pray to him, worship him, give him our hearts and our trust, that will be enough for him to do the rest.  The scraps from the Master’s table are greater than any treasures the world can provide.  Staying close to the Lord in faith and humility, we will find in him our healing and our salvation.  We will find what was so beautifully expressed for us in the opening prayer from today’s Mass: O God, who have prepared for those who love you good things which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love, so that, loving you in all things and above all things, we may attain your promises, which surpass every human desire.