Mt. 11:25-30
One of the persons who inspired me in my vocational journey is my own novice master who is our present provincial. Recently I got an opportunity to spend some time with him. We went back to our novitiate days and relived our life as master and disciple. He is about to complete his term as provincial and I just reminded him of the number of eventualities that he encountered during his tenure as provincial. In his first year, he had to face the unexpected death of our previous provincial and a young priest in a car accident. Followed by the abduction of one of our priests who served as a missionary in Yemen and his long captivity; at this moment he had to force himself to remain silent to make sure the safety of the priest who was in the custody of IS. Again unusual death of one of our young priests and two more accidental deaths of our confrere. I did not ask him how did you manage these undesirable experiences because I grew in my religious life seeing him kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament early in the morning as well as late in the night …
“Come to me, all that you are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt. 11: 28-30) This can be considered as the most consoling words of Jesus, especially at this juncture of a pandemic wherein we all struggle to survive. Life is a challenge and we need to encounter various challenges in our day to day life. One of the basic principles of evolutionary theory itself is known as the Survival of the Fittest. At times this struggle to exist can be real burdensome. Find meaning for our life by facing these challenges with courage is not an easy task. We might be familiar with suicide stories of those who gave up their life because they could not bear the burden of their life any longer. In today’s gospel, Jesus asks us to share our challenges and burdens with him. He assures us that we will find strength in him to carry our burden and continue our life journey.
How did Jesus help us in this regard? Jesus helps us to carry our yoke by empowering us with his word and fill our life with our hope that he is there with us in our journey of life. On the way to Calvary Simone of Cyrene helped Jesus to share the burden of his cross. Now Jesus is there for all of us, to understand and share the burdens of our yoke. Jesus says: “I am gentle and humble in heart.” Jesus is always available to listen to our frustrations, discouragement, sad stories. We can be sure that He will hear us and he will not judge us. When we surrender our yoke to Jesus, he gives us his yoke. What is it? It is a hope that we are on our way to father’s home to enjoy eternal rest with him. The yoke of Jesus is light because he carried the weight of our yoke once and for all. This assurance and hope give us a new perspective on our own life. Now, life is not only a challenge but it is also a blessing because He is with us as a co-traveller.
Our master used to say: “look at that man on the cross; he remained there to give hope for us.” As we pass through this difficult phase of our life let us continue to look at that man on the cross and find hope in his company.