Today’s Gospel
tells us about the Heart of Jesus. It gives us these words of comfort: Come to me all you who labor and are
burdened and I will give you rest. What do these words tell us about the
Lord? What do they mean for us? Well, they
tell us something about God that is very different than the images of God we
might have. Many of our images are of
the Almighty Awesome Creator of the Universe. We think of the great frescos on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as Michelangelo portrayed God creating the
universe with a dazzling display of power. But He is more than this. We often
have images of God as the Judge of the living and dead. He is the One we will
have to come before and present the work of our lives, not just the individual
things we have done, but how well we have allowed His love to permeate the
world. There is reward or punishment waiting, there is mercy and compassion,
but there is also justice. But He is more than this. Jesus is meek and humble
of heart. The prophet Zechariah prophesied that this is how our King would come
to us[1]. And
this is how Jesus presents himself in the Gospel, meek and humble of heart.
What does it mean to be meek? To be meek is to be patient and gentle. It is not
the surrender of rights or some form of cowardice, but the opposite of sudden
anger, of malice and of long harbored vengeance. Jesus is meek. He is not waiting for the right time to
strike us down for what we have done to Him, how we have attacked His Holiness
with our sins, how we have attacked those whom He loves, or how we have put him
out of our lives. He is gentle. He is patient with us[2].
Jesus is humble
of heart. A proud person sees the universe revolving around him or her. If there is an offense, the proud person
refuses to forgive. “Who does he think that he is?” the proud person asks. He
or she is not concerned with returning the sinner to love. His or her only concern is with vengeance,
getting the sinner back for the offense. That is not the way of the Lord. He is
humble of heart. His concern is not with how He has been offended. His concern is with the sinner and returning
him or her to love.
What does all
this mean to us? It means that we need
to give Jesus our burdens. This is more than the difficulties of life,
sickness, marriage or family problems, etc. Yes, we give these to the Lord, but
there is more than this that He wants. He wants us to give Him all that is
keeping us from Him. Perhaps there are sinful hidden closets in our lives. We
are ashamed. Perhaps there is some form
of substance abuse. Perhaps there is some form of sexual immorality. Perhaps we
have difficulty forgiving those who have hurt us. Maybe we have committed
serious sins. We had an abortion or we convinced another to have an abortion.
Often we are not as afraid of bringing our sins to the priest in confession, as
we are afraid that God is never going to forgive us. We have attacked Him, willingly
and knowingly. How can we seek forgiveness? So we think that we are condemned
to go through life carrying these burdens only to wait for everlasting
punishment after we die. No, the Lord
says, Give me your burdens, come to me
for I am meek and humble of heart.
He is saying, “I am not so offended that I am shutting off mercy and
compassion. I am not concerned about
myself. I am concerned about you. I suffered on the cross for you. Give me your burdens. I want them, no matter how ugly, how messy
they may be.”
And then the
Lord says, And you will find rest for
yourselves, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The burden of being
a Christian, as demanding as it is, is light next to the burden of carrying our
sins to the grave and beyond. Following the way of holiness, being separate
from what others consider normal life, is so much easier than being part of the
crowd that exalts in its immorality. Holiness is being different. Holiness is accepting the way of the Lord.
I am sure that
you have heard this quote from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI many times, but it
bears repeating: “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for
comfort. You were made for greatness.”
Every one of us was created for greatness. To achieve this greatness
means that there are times that we have to reject the comfort of the world. There
are times that we have to be are out and out uncomfortable. We are mocked for
our faith and our morality. We are mocked for our refusing to live for
ourselves. We are mocked because we know that marriage is sacred and live that
way. We are mocked because we know that we have to avoid certain associates,
certain places, certain parties, etc because we know that they can destroy
us. We are mocked because we are not
part of the crowd. This is not comfortable. But we were not created for
comfort. We were not created to be part
of the crowd. We were created for
greatness. That is the burden that is
the yoke that Jesus calls us to accept in today’s Gospel. It is so much easier
to carry the burden of the Lord then to carry the burden of sin ■
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario