—O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.—

Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman brings lack of faith full circle.

In our first reading from Numbers, Israel responded to the Canaanites out of fear. The Israelites, with God marching with them, forgot the most important lesson of all —“ faith in God is paramount. Faith in God is stronger than any obstacle.

The Israelite scouts went into the land of Canaan, a people without faith in the true God, and came back afraid. They were not just afraid, but they encouraged fear in the people.

But the men who had gone up with [Caleb] said,
—We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.—
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel
about the land they had scouted, saying,
—The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants.
And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants
we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.—

Those men certainly sinned against God, and lost trust in Him. Perhaps the sin they committed, their lack of trust, would have fallen on them alone. But no, they couldn’t leave it at that. Misery loves company.

So their sin spread:

At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries,
and even in the night the people wailed.

Today, we would attribute the Israelites response to human weakness.

Human weakness and human self-confidence are both sinful. Consider Caleb’s statement:

Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,
—We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.—

Ahem, who can do so?

We can do it or we are afraid and can do nothing.

The psalmist got it right when he said:

They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.

The Canaanite woman stands in stark contract. She has no standing in Israel, a member of the race cast out by Israel, people still without faith in the true God.

Yet she persisted. Despite all the obstacles, bitterness, and suffering of her people, she persisted in faith —“ a faith that produced results beyond human understanding.

Brothers and sisters,

Today we commemorate the Fourteen Holy Helpers. These were people of faith. They were bishops, soldiers, abbots, virgins, and all but one were martyrs.

They had faith.

The people of Bavaria developed a strong devotion to these saints and their intercession. Their faith told them that by prayer, and by trusting in the Lord’s bountiful mercy, these saints’ intercession for the people’s needs would be heard.

[1] St. Christopher and [2] St. Giles against plague, [3] St. Denis, against headaches, [4] St. Blaise, against ills of the throat, [5] St. Elmo, patron of abdominal maladies [6] St. Barbara, against fever, [7] St. Vitus, against epilepsy, [8] St. Pantaleon, patron of physicians, [9] St. Cyriacus, recourse in time of temptations, especially at the hour of death; [10] St. Catherine for protection against a sudden, unprovided death; [11] St. Eustace, patron of all kinds of difficulties, especially family troubles. Sts. [12] George and [13] Erasmus, are invoked for the health and protection of animals. [14] St. Margaret of Antioch is the patron of safe childbirth.

The Church, through Her witness proclaims the power of faith.

The Church’s saints, by their example, witness to the power of faith lived.

The Church doesn’t just make its proclamation to the un-listening world, to the anonymous masses of people out there. She makes that proclamation to us.

Have faith, trust in God, God is stronger than human weakness, be like that Canaanite woman. When you cry out, like the Canaanite woman,

—Lord, help me.—

…trust that He will actually provide what you need.