Christ’s gentle yoke

July 18, 2013
Thursday, 15th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Ex 3:13-20
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 Jesus’ time suffered under the heavy yoke of the burdensome interpretations of the Law by their religious leaders. Of these leaders Jesus exclaimed: “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). It was from this burden that Jesus sought to liberate the people when he said: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest.”

The laws ordering our lives are not as unreasonable as the enabling laws crafted by the Jewish religious leaders in Biblical times. But surely we have our own share of life’s burdens. The Lord Jesus extends to us the same invitation to find rest by carrying his yoke. This yoke is the cross he was referring to when he said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). For all practical purposes this means bearing salvific sufferings and not the sufferings that result from our vices. But how can Jesus’ yoke offer rest when a yoke is a yoke by any other name?

Answering this question requires drawing a line between joy and happiness. People are happy if heavy load is taken off their shoulders. But even if such heavy load is not taken away from them, they can still experience inner joy by the lofty reasons that enliven their spirit. People who take up the yoke of Jesus experience inner joy despite the weight because of their desire to do God’s Will. St. Augustine found extreme joy in following God’s Will despite the troubles it brought to his life. He prayed for two things: that God manifested to him His Will, and that God gave him the ways and means to follow that Will. “Then I shall find my peace”, St. Augustine wrote.

When we nurture the desire to do God’s will as St. Augustine did, we draw peace and real rest from carrying the yoke of Christ. 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.” The marching order to carry our crosses is not the thing that makes our lives miserable but carrying these crosses against our will. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website:www.frdan.org.

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