July 1
Dedication of
the Church of Jumièges,
Normandy, France (1067)
Gospel: Matthew 8:28-34
 |
| Image created using Google AI Image Creator. |
Today’s Gospel
is about a town that got exactly what it should have wanted and ran from it
anyway. Jesus drives the demons out of two men chained among the tombs and sets
them completely free, and the town’s response isn’t joy, it’s fear. They beg Jesus
to leave. The lesson is in plain sight: Real freedom, when it arrives in your
life, can feel more threatening than the bondage it replaced.
We do the same
thing in smaller ways constantly. We pray for change and then flinch when it
actually starts moving. We say we want peace, but peace would mean putting down
a grudge we have gotten comfortable carrying. We say we want freedom from a
habit, but freedom would mean facing who we are without it. Jesus doesn’t ask
permission to disturb what needs disturbing; He just walks toward it, the same
way He walked straight into that graveyard.
So, here’s an
invitation: don’t be the town in this Gospel. When Jesus moves toward the
chaotic, tangled, or shameful corner of your life today, resist the urge to ask
Him to leave. Let Him stay and sit in the mess a while with you. The fear of
what He might rearrange is almost always smaller than the freedom waiting on
the other side of it, and He’s patient enough to wait for you to open that door
yourself.
Today, the
Marian calendar remembers the Dedication of the Church of Jumièges in Normandy,
1067, ground set apart and given over entirely to God, on purpose, with nothing
held back. Our Lady has always been that kind of ground. She never once asked Jesus
to leave, not at the wedding feast, not at the foot of the cross. Here’s
something to consider: Is there a tomb in your life right now where you’d
rather Jesus stayed outside?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
