July 26
Our Lady of Faith
Canchy
Gospel: Matthew 13:44-52
(17th Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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Today’s Gospel
gives us the kingdom of heaven as buried treasure and a pearl of great price,
something a person finds, and then, full of joy, sells everything they have to
obtain it. The joy comes before the sacrifice in this parable. The selling
everything isn’t the sad part of the story; it’s the natural response to
finding something worth more than everything else combined.
We sometimes
treat sacrifice for our faith as pure loss: what we give up, what we go
without, what it costs us. But Jesus frames it the opposite way here: the man
sells everything full of joy, not grief, because he’s finally found something
genuinely worth more. The sacrifice only feels like sacrifice when we haven’t
actually found the treasure yet.
Ask yourself
today whether you’re still treating faith like a cost or whether you’ve
actually found the treasure. If it still feels purely like giving things up,
sit with that honestly instead of forcing gratitude you don’t feel. And if you
have found it, that field, that pearl, that thing worth more than everything
else, let the joy of that be as real and as visible as the man in this parable.
Today the
Marian calendar speaks of Our Lady of Faith at Canchy; here her devotion is rooted
in exactly the kind of trust that recognizes a treasure before it’s fully
proven. Our Lady found her own treasure in a single “yes” that cost her
everything and gave her everything at once. Something to think about today: Have
you found the treasure yet in our Lord, our Lady, and the Rosary, or are you
still only counting what it will cost you?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
