stained glass window is at The Immaculata in San Diego. I don't get to go see it very often, as normally if I attend a weekday Mass, it's in one of the adjacent parishes I live near. I love the domestic setting in which the Holy Family is depicted. The Immaculata was constructed in the last hurrah of when churches were made to look like churches and not multi-purpose meeting "spaces." My high school baccalaureate Mass was held in this church. It was also one of two venues where the relics of St. Therese came to visit a few years back on their world tour.Usually dogs get short shrift in Jewish and Arabic culture. Which is why I like this particular window so much, being a dog fancier. The dog itself looks like a cross between two dogs we had when I was a teen and into my early adult years: an Irish setter (the shape of the dog) and a light brown "All-American. " Granted, more than a bit anachronistic on the "setter," but I love it all the more for that. And, of course, the boy Jesus is giving this well cared for dog a bone.
Too often the story the gentile woman in Matthew 15: 21-28 (also Mark 7: 24-30.) is a bit misread. People sometimes think that Jesus had to be cajoled into curing the woman's daughter. But Jesus really intended to help her all along. The apostles (bishops in training then!) had been trying to shoo the woman away, and wanted Jesus to send her away too. The story reminds them that it's not only the Jews he has come to save. He uses the incident as a teaching moment. When she says "even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps" one has to wonder if Jesus didn't have a smile for her and was remembering what His own encounters with dogs were like.
