Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

The energy drink Red Bull has an ongoing ad campaign with the tagline: “Red Bull gives you wings!” It was memorable for its cartoon commercials. In ads, an individual would get out of a tight spot by popping open a Red Bull, sprouting wings, and flying aloft.

These Red Bull ads remind me of a commentary on today’s gospel by St. Augustine. He says: “Any other burden oppresses and crushes you, but Christ’s actually takes weight off you. Any other burden weighs down, but Christ’s gives you wings.” And Augustine goes on to give a peculiar metaphor for what he means by Christ’s burden that is light. He states: If you take a bird’s wings away, you might seem to be taking weight off it, but the more weight you take off, the more you tie it down to earth. There it is on the ground, and you wanted to relieve it of a weight; give it back the weight of its wings and you will see how it flies.

Surely the mental image of a bird with its wings plucked off is worthy of one of those Red Bull cartoons. However, St. Augustine has expressed a marvelous truth about today’s Gospel. Jesus does not say that he will only take away your burden; He says he will then give you His yoke with which He shoulders with you to make you light. You trade your burden for Christ’s.

Contemporary Western society views Christianity as a series of rules. And, putting aside pretense, we do have rules about who can receive communion or when observing Lent. Sin is usually looked at as breaking rules. Yet, in actual fact, Christ imposes no rules on us. Rather, he offers us a series of invitations. Invitations to what? To live in the freedom of the children of God. Or, as Augustine puts it: “Christ gives you wings.”

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB