“Lord, help me!” The woman in today’s Gospel has great tenacity! She is persistent in her faith with good self-discipline. I don’t know if you remember in school we used to have a grade for self-discipline. It is a good characteristic to have and an essential quality in the spiritual life.

I usually get up in the morning at 4:30. The first thing I do is exercise. The only thing that gets me through is the thought of a hot cup of coffee. When the alarm goes off, my first prayer of the day is, LORD, HELP ME.

But, I know I have to do it. Keeping healthy in body and soul is important if we are to live a balanced life. It can be hard sometimes to come to grips with the fact that we have a soul that needs exercise, because we all have excuses: “I’m too busy, too tired, it’s too inconvenient, I’m not in the mood. When was the last time you exercised your spiritual life by praying the rosary, reading a book in the Bible, praying outside of Mass before the Blessed Sacrament or spoke to your patron saint or Guardian Angel?

These are the normal exercises for a good spiritual life. When our souls separate from our bodies in death, “too busy, too tired and too inconvenient” excuses are not going to cut it.Don’t throw away your life on excuses, always seize the opportunity to be better physically and spiritually.

Be tenacious like the Canaanite woman today, discipline yourself in the practice of praying regularly. We can be better, physically and spiritually if we put our minds to it, for in the end, “it is not right to take the food of children and throw it to the dogs.”