It is 20th August 2017. We celebrate the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings are from Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; the Second reading is from Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; and the Gospel from Matthew 15:21-28. God calls us to experience Him in fullness when we are faithful to Him. In the first reading God wants to offer this experience to all people opening the sacred space to everyone. God spoke through the Prophet Isaiah that the house of the Lord shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. This refers to the second Temple constructed after the return of the people from exile. Temple of God is the space for everyone including the foreigners. “I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their holocausts and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” (Is.56:7). Everyone has a space to share and to experience God’s love in the temple. In the second reading, St. Paul expresses that God wants to reconcile all people to Himself even when the Chosen People rejected God’s offer of mercy that provided a room for the others to be reconciled with God. Even though, the people of Israel rejected and disobeyed God and God’s commandments, God still wants the Chosen People, the Israel to enjoy God’s mercy. “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Rom.11:29). In the Gospel, Jesus assures that God’s mercy is for all people when they have confessed their faith in God. Faith in God justifies our closeness to God. The Canaanite woman teaches us the need to persevere in our prayers. We must realize that our hunger for prayer must satisfy the want of the other. A single delay in prayer and seemingly rejected petitions does not mean God is not interested in blessing us. We have not yet asked What God wants to offer us. The success and blessing of the prayer is to whisper the exact thing God desires and wills for us to have. How could we ask God when we are not guided by the Holy Spirit? Our sincere and openness to the Spirit of God makes us to ask what God wishes to offer. When we are distracted and dissipated, we ask the wrong things repeatedly and either we are denied or delayed for a very long time. That leads us to the frustration of not praying at all. When we have a great faith with persistence and perseverance like that of Canaanite woman, we will surely be noticed and granted by God. A true and sincere prayer is nothing but taking initiatives to approach Jesus no matter what we are in need of. Our repeated initiatives with regularity pays the moments of grace. May God bless you and strengthen your fibre connections with God. May you have a good day.