Daily Devotional

We all experience transfiguration now and then, moments of excitement, discovery, or joy. Sometimes, we may experience ecstasy while in prayer; we may even see a vision or receive an apparition of Jesus or the Saints. These things come and go. They are highlights of our journey, not destinations in themselves. We can never make them permanent. Do not be a miracle-seeking Christian. God is with us even in the most ordinary events of life.

Why did this woman refuse to give up? What made her pass Jesus’ test? This is a woman who has suffered in the past. She knew that pride wouldn’t get you anything. Learn to be humble. Don’t interpret everything as an insult; you never can tell if the so-called insult is just a test. Maturity begins when you start seeing insult as education.

Jesus explained that it is not what one eats or how one eats that defiles him. Instead, it is the content of one’s heart that defiles a person. If we seek to be pure, the washing must first begin within our very heart. This is the kind of washing God promised the children of Israel in today’s first reading. “You shall (once again) be my people and I will be your God.”