“It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs,” Jesus told her. Yet she is not repelled by his parable. She engages it.

Like Peter, we might envy the one who walks on water, thinking that more control of our lives is all that we need.

We like to fancy ourselves as free from an enveloping world.

Part of growing up is realizing that someone is waiting for us, that someday someone is going to ask us to share life with him or her. All of that is sewn into the dreamed-of dress.

“Wheat and Weeds” is the parable Christ gave us to bite down on when we feel that we do not belong. Christ and his compassion have not abandoned us.

We listen to the sacred Scriptures week after week, year after year. Why does it take a diagnosis, a divorce, a death, a setback or a struggle for us to hear them?