20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(A)

INTRO: tell story of Hide-n-Seek……”being found”!

Hide-n-Seek, I was pretty good at finding the right spot to hide in. I was a smaller sized child and I was “fast”! So I could find really good places!

ONE TIME I had found a place under our back porch steps!! It was PERFECT.

I knew my twin, would never find me!!!

I could see him scrambling…here, there, and everywhere trying to find me. I quietly laughed…and gleefully was thinking:

“He will NEVER find me here”.
AND ……then it occurred to me:

HE MAY NEVER FIND ME!

I didn’t like that!
In the end, I let him find me by leaving my foot stick out from under the porch step.
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Everyone one of us wants to be “found”!
Everyone one of us wants our presence to mean something!
Every one of us wants to know that we matter!

………And how true today with all the racism controversy and un-Christ-like brutality.

The Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel seeks what we all seek:

To be acknowledged as good
To be respected as a child of God
To be welcomed as a sister and brother
The HIGHEST compliment anyone can give to you and me as good followers of Jesus is that we FIND SOMETHING GOOD IN ALL OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS and do not racially discriminate!

That’s the definition for a “community of believers”
That’s the definition for a “parish”
That’s the definition for a “family”

Our Catholic Church is teaching us to find ALL people as GOOD and worthy of our help and kindness. We are to include, incorporate, and embrace ALL PEOPLE into our circle.

There are many sad and true stories today:

⦁ Of bad attitudes towards others whether family members or world members
⦁ And Of discrimination stemming inside us, mostly in our thoughts. Let’s work on that, especially in our thoughts. Many time WE THINK ugly things about people!!!

So;
EVERYONE WANTS TO BE FOUND
EVERYONE DESERVES TO BE FOUND
EVERYONE WANTS TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED!!!

CONCLUSION

Everyone is like the Canaanite woman. Everyone deserves to be FOUND, NOTICED, HELPED, and ACKNOWLEDGED.

Today we receive the real presence of Jesus Christ who always finds everyone and acknowledges everyone!

After receiving the Lord, whether spiritually at home or right here, may you have the ability to say today to everyone:

I FOUND YOU!