July 19, 2018 Thursday, 15th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Is 26: 7-19
Gospel: Mt 11:28–30
Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For my yoke is good and my burden is light.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
The people in the time of Jesus were burdened with the Law. It was not because the Law, which Moses wrote, was harsh. It was because the Scribes, the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law gave it a burdensome interpretation. Jesus described these interpreters in this wise: ‘They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4).
Jesus wanted to give the people a break. He said: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest.” To the people who were familiar with Scriptures, this invitation sounded like an echo of a similar invitation found in the Book of Sirach that says, “Come aside to me, you untutored and take up lodging in the house of instruction.” “How long will you be deprived of wisdom’s food,” the Book of Sirach continues. Wisdom as used in Sirach stands for Jesus whose ways are God’s ways – wisdom par excellence. “Submit your neck to her yoke that your mind may accept her teaching” (Sirach 51:23-26).
Because God’s ways are the ways of wisdom, doing his will unburdens us and gives us peace. St. Augustine encapsulated this concept in his famous prayer: Lord give me the ways and means to do what you command and command me what you will, and I shall find my peace. Do we find joy in following God’s ways? In the Book of Jeremiah we read: “Thus says the Lord: Stand beside the earliest roads, ask the pathways of old which is the way to good, and walk it; thus you will find rest for your souls. But they said, “we will not walk it” (Jeremiah 6:16)”.
Those who refuse to walk the way of God are never in peace. It is not obedience that brings unhappiness but reluctant compliance. While we are bound to obey God’s law, we have given our allegiance to it in freedom. In obeying his commands we find our rest and enjoy genuine peace. In Epistulae ad Lucilium Seneca wrote: “The man who does something under orders is not unhappy: he is unhappy who does something against his will.”
Thank God we are not living anymore in the time of the Scribes and Pharisees laboring under stringent interpretation of the Law. We live under the new commandment of Love, where the yoke is easy and the burden is light. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.
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