I left for Savannah, Georgia, a month ago on a Monday. At the same time my 21-year-old nephew, Andrew, was at the doctor’s office in Savannah receiving the results from his second round of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for his lymphoma. On the way down there, I was informed of the positive news. When I got there, the environment in my sister’s house was peaceful and joyful, in stark contrast to the preceding sleepless, tear-filled nights.

My younger sister, Rosita, is a person of assiduous prayer. Just as the Canaanite woman from today’s gospel reading who earnestly pleaded with the Lord to heal her sick daughter, the circumstances of my sister’s life have made of her a woman of persistent prayer.

My two nephews were born with powerful food allergies. Andrew, my older nephew, was diagnosed with a chronic illness of the immune system at age ten. The latest battle has been his cancer, which is now contained. It has now been twenty-one years that I have witnessed how the circumstances of my sister’s life have made her into a person of great faith. My sister’s many tears in prayer have changed her.

Suffering changes the way we view our will considering God’s will. We learn to trust God’s will and abandon our own will. The more we suffer and the more we pray in tears, the more we learn to accept God’s will in our lives. The Bible is filled with examples of this. Accepting God’s will is what the lives of Saints are made of. Talking about saints, my sister prays unceasingly to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the invocations of Our Lady of Guadalupe, our Lady of Lourdes, and our Lady of Fatima. One of her favorite saints is Saint Therese of Lisieux.

Today’s gospel story of the foreign woman who persisted in her supplication for her sick daughter is presented to us as a model of prayer and faith. The gospel story is paired with a selection from the prophet Isaiah in which God announces that not only Jews but people from all nations were welcome to worship in the temple of Jerusalem.

While it is true that the promise of salvation was initially given to the people of Israel, God’s call was ultimately intended to be universal. This universality of God’s call was demonstrated in the Lord’s granting of the Canaanite woman’s request. Access to God’s promises was granted only to the descendants of Abraham before our Lord’s time. The Lord came and offered access not based on having the Patriarchs’ blood in our veins but rather faith in the Lord.

This woman was aware of the cultural separation between her and the Lord; however, her deep faith allowed her to hope for the gift of God for whom there are not limitations. Her deep faith in combination with her persistent prayer resulted in the Lord’s recognition of her sincerity of belief and granting her petition. The Canaanite woman did not give up when discouraged by the disciples. Her faith was so strong that she persisted even in the face of silence and challenge from the Lord.

The disciples’ involvement in the story allows us to reflect on the role of saints in our prayer life. We may assume that some disciples asked the woman to leave them and the Lord alone. Since she persisted, they went to the Lord so that he personally would dismiss her. Perhaps motivated by the wrong reasons, the disciples were helping the woman when they asked the Lord to send her way.

The Saints are the Lord’s friends in heaven who may take our persistent prayer to God. They are in the presence of God to help those who are still in this world suffering and in need. They do want to help us if we ask them. This is in part what we believe in as the Communion of Saints. Saint Therese of Lisieux expressed her desire to help people in need in heaven with this beautiful phrase, “I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth”.

Let us humbly ask the Lord for his grace to grow in our trust in him through a persistent prayer.