In life we go through many rejections, but Jesus wants to empower us to “beg” for what we need, like the Canaanite woman in the Gospel today. An episode like this is an occasion for us to look at our own attitudes toward people of other races, ethnic groups and nationalities, not to mention the socially disadvantaged or physically or mentally disabled-in other words, any people who are ‘different’. How inclusive are we in word and action? And does our parish community go out of its way to provide a welcome for the outsider? These are very real questions in societies that are becoming more and more inter-cultural. Let us have faith in God and in his promises. Only then will we have hope for the future.