“Como to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest”
(Mt. 11, 25-30)
We have left behind the strong time of Easter and the great solemnities of the Holy Trinity and the Body and Blood of Christ, now we come inside a different time, the ordinary time, the time of Hope, blended in with the green color of the liturgy, it is a time of reflection and of learning, in the public life of Our Lord.
This Sunday’s Gospel is rich and profound because it is a prayer that comes from the heart of Jesus, is a profound praise towards God for His generosity in rewarding the humility and humbleness of the little ones and hiding His greatness from the wise and learned, who have lost the joy of seeing Him in the simple things of all creation.
We are in the mist of the twenty first century, beginning the second decade of this century. And never in the history of humanity have we had so many possibilities to study, to investigate, to research, and unearth so many mysteries as we have done at present time. The human being has turned into a re-creator of what God has done.
In some occasions, when we see the greatness of the things God has created, the human being with great intellectual selfishness have gone blind, he has lost the joy of seeing life in the simplicity of things, the simple mechanisms that allow us to be happy. This is the paradox of the human being: creates things to live better, but does not achieve happiness. We know a lot about the things that surround us, but too little about ourselves and the path to the real happiness we can find in God.
Jesus spoke to the people who were desperate because they were looking for God and could not find Him, they tried to be good people, but they were tired and desperate of always looking for happiness and ending up at the same place where they started. For a Jew of that time, religion was something similar to a catalog of regulations, all rules and more rules, never ending rules that did not touch or reached the human heart.
The god of the permanent rules, is not the God who saves. (Mario Santa Bueno). The teachings of Jesus were rejected by the doctors of the law and were revealed to the ones who received them humbly, like children.
To find and feel the presence of the Lord, you don’t have to complicate things.God is God Omnipotent, but allows Himself to be seeing in the simple things, He is a God of the humble and simple, He was born of a poor woman, who was marry to a carpenter, was born in poverty, but in the joyful mist of the shepherds of Bethlehem, He grew in a poor town and maybe among not-so-good people, because of the low culture that prevailed in the area at the time, but in the joy of the simple things, the respect, the enthusiasm for life, the willingness to overcome the challenges that were always present at that time.
As we can see, He is a simple and humble God, He could have chosen to be born in a palace, but instead He chose to be born in a palace of poverty and simplicity. God makes big the hearts of the humble and falls in love with them.
When humility and gentleness are cultivated, by being humble people, the invitation of Jesus is understood and accepted: “Come to me all you who are labor and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves” (Mt. 11, 28-29)
The Christian who wants to be a real Christian, and we all should want to be real Christians; does not have it easy. He will have many yokes and burdens to carry. The Gospel’s message, that we should try to live with fidelity, clashes head on with the values and the laws of the environment we live in. On the other hand, the limitations, the illnesses, the laboral and familiar problems and many other things are burdens that sometimes are too heavy to carry.
Confronting the tiredness that these yokes and burdens produce in us, there are two things the Christians must do. In the first place, to accept the “come to me ….. and I will give you rest” of Jesus, taking time to pray, getting closer to the Sacraments, in acts of withdrawals/abandonment, like the one done by S. Josemaria Escriva: “My Lord and my God, in your hands I abandon: the past, the present, the future, the big, the small, the little, the much, the temporal and the everlasting”. How many times, an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament has been the most restful time we had?
It is a matter of learning the habit of praying and telling the Lord everything that is happening to us. As the poet said: ¿who will I tell my sorrows, my beautiful love? ¿who will I tell my sorrows, but only to you? (Alfonso Martinez Sanz).
In many occasions, it might be necessary to take a physical rest, for a few days or during a vacation, like the ones taken in the months of July and August in the United States or in December in some parts of Latin America. This physical rest, without a doubt, will be more refreshing if it is accompanied by Christ, growing in your relationship with Him, participating in the Holy Eucharist and including the Virgin Mary in everything and anything you do.
Amen
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