July 2
Feast of the Visitation
of Our Lady instituted in 1385
by Pope Urban IV
Gospel: Matthew 9:1-8
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| Image created using Google AI Image Creator. |
Today’s Gospel
takes us to a paralyzed man lowered to Jesus by friends who refused to give up
on him, and the first thing Jesus says isn’t about his legs at all. “Your sins
are forgiven.” He healed the body, too. The man walked out healed, but he walked
out forgiven first.
Most of us
would have settled for the legs. We bring Jesus our visible problems, the
diagnosis, the broken relationship, the empty bank account, and we want those
fixed first. But Jesus keeps reaching past the obvious request toward something
underneath it: the guilt we’ve buried, the resentment we’ve normalized, the
shame we’ve never said out loud to anyone. Jesus knows what is to be treated
first.
Don’t wait for
the visible problem to clear before you bring Him the hidden one. Whatever
you’ve been carrying quietly, the thing you’d never put in a prayer request,
the thing only you and God know about, bring it to Him today exactly as it is.
He’s not waiting for you to clean it up first. He forgives before He fixes,
every time, and He’s already looking past whatever you think is the real issue
toward the one that actually is.
Today, the
Marian calendar marks the Feast of the Visitation, instituted in 1385 by Pope
Urban IV, the day Mary, carrying Christ within her, hurried to Elizabeth, and
her arrival alone made the child in Elizabeth’s womb leap before a single word
was spoken. She didn’t preach. She simply showed up carrying Him, and that was
enough to stir what needed stirring. Something to ponder: What might change in
someone else’s life if you simply showed up carrying Jesus with you?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
