Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s gospel we have the beautiful invitation from the Lord: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” This invitation is a balm for the soul of anyone who has felt the burden of life and desired to rest in the Lord. Jesus goes on to invite us: “Take my yoke upon you… For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Here we might take pause, because, as anyone who has taken up the yoke of the Lord can attest, sometimes this yoke can seem quite burdensome!
Part of the reason the yoke of the Lord can seem burdensome to us is that we resist, part of us doesn’t want to do it, and so we drag our heels, so to speak. Here it is a matter of learning to conform our wills to the will of the Lord. As we learn to say “yes” to what the Lord asks of us, we will find the yoke to be easier.
Another part of the reason for this yoke to be burdensome is that at times the Lord will ask things of us that are beyond our strength. We won’t be able to do them by ourselves, but only with Christ’s help, relying on Christ’s strength. We may be bothered by the fact that we can’t do it by ourselves. Something in us seems to insist that we should be able to do it by ourselves. Our need for help may make us feel defective somehow. Yet here we need to realize that we were never intended to do anything alone, but only with the help of the Lord. This is an important lesson for us to learn, and in the end, it is preparing us for eternity. Our destiny is to share in the Communion that is the Holy Trinity through our union with Christ as members of his body. And we must learn to work in union with him in all we do to truly share in this communion.
Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections