July 5, 2020
Jesus Christ, who is the Word, tells us today, “Come to me all who are tired and overwhelmed, and I will relieve you.”
Readings
First reading
Reading the prophecy of Zechariah 9, 9-10
This is what the Lord says:
“Jump with joy, Zion; rejoice, Jerusalem!
Look what comes your king, just and triumphant,
poor and mounted on a borrico, on a donkey’s chick.
It will suppress Ephraim’s chariot and Jerusalem’s horses;
will break the warrior arc and proclaim peace to the peoples. Its dominance will go from sea to sea, from the River to the extremes of the country.”
Psalm
Come out 144, 1-2. 8-9. 10-11. 13cd-14
R/. I will bless your name forever, my God, my king.
I will make you, my God, my king;
I will bless your name forever and ever.
Day after day, I’ll bless you
and I’ll praise your name forever and ever. R/.
The Lord is merciful and merciful,
slow to anger and rich in mercy;
the Lord is good to all,
he is affectionate with all his creatures. R/.
May all your creatures thank you, Lord,
may your faithful bless you.
May they proclaim the glory of your reign,
talk about your exploits. R/.
The Lord is faithful to his words,
kind in all his actions.
The Lord sustains those who are going to fall,
straightens out those who already bend. R/.
Second Reading
Reading the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans 8, 9. 11-13
Brothers:
You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you; on the other hand, if someone does not possess the Spirit of Christ, it is not Christ’s.
And if the Spirit of the one who resurrected Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who rose from the dead to Christ Jesus will also give life to their mortal bodies, by the same Spirit that dwells in you. So, brethren, we are debtors, but not of the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if they live according to the flesh, they shall die; but if they kill the works of the body with the Spirit, they will live.
Gospel of the Day
Reading the Holy Gospel according to Matthew 11, 25-30
At that time, Jesus took the floor and said:
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and understood, and revealed them to the little ones. Yes, Father, that’s good for you.
Everything has been given to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son more than the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son and the one to whom the Son wants to reveal it.
Come to me all those who are tired and overwhelmed, and I will relieve you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, that I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Because my yoke is bearable and my load light.”
Comment
Tired and overwhelmed was the people of Israel for having trusted inept and corrupt kings who had led them into exile from Babylon; tired and overwhelmed by a life without present or future in foreign lands, without land of its own, without worship, without priests, without Temple. without their hallmarks as God’s people. And that is where he hears this word of the prophet Zechariah: “Rejoice and leap with joy”. The reason is that God has not stopped thinking about them and sends them a new king, a poor and humble messiah, who will break with the dynamics of strength and violence to which they have been subjected, something in principle unheard of and incomprehensible, when not unrealizable.
Such messy prophecy, from the Christian faith learned and lived in the Church, invites us to identify this poor and humble king with Jesus. who entered Jerusalem as well, acclaimed by the crowd on a borrica chick, as we celebrated palm Sunday. Poor and humble Messiah, servant of Yahweh, whose cradle was a manger, whose throne was the gallows of the Cross and his crown was thorns.
Tired and overwhelmed was also the people of Israel in Jesus’ time. His authorities had ceded power to the foreign power of Rome in exchange for privileges and had diluted their identity and the strength of their religion with multiple human norms and laws, in which the external and apparent prevailed over the deep and spiritual. A people subjected to the yoke of velepid arbitrariness and the heavy burdens of the rich and powerful; at the end of the day, a privileged few subjugating the poor and humble majority, silent or silenced.
Tired and overwhelmed we too can be for so many reasons and problems that surround us in the present moment. We usually identify tiredness with exhaustion and lack of strength; and overwhelmed with internal or external pressures that do not let us be ourselves and act freely. There are tiredness and burdens that are healthy because they are the result of our generous dedication and our sacrificed work, even producing satisfaction. But others do not; because they depersonalize us, because they empty us, because they humiliate us, because they hurt or enslave us.
And there appears Jesus, meek and humble in heart, identified with the weak, thanking the Father, for he has revealed his truth not to the wise and understood but to the small and humble. And he invites us to approach him, to place tired and burdened upon him, to rest in him, and to accept his carrying yoke and his light burden.
It is striking that Jesus does not incite rebellion in the face of oppressors, nor the leave of responsibilities and jobs, or to lower his arms so as not to do anything or settle for what is there. Nor does it say that it will carry everything that overwhelms us or fatigues us, and that it will make our life easy and without any problem, that is, a path of roses without thorns.
He simply invites us to approach him, to take his yoke and learn from him, to enter his meek and humble heart.
Being close to Jesus at times or at certain times is relatively easy and frequent. Being close to Jesus and letting yourself be enlightened by him constantly and continuously is a little more difficult. Many of us turn away from Jesus when his follow-up demands commitments that we are not willing to make, or when life does not go as we expect.
Jesus invites us to take his yoke, which is bearable, and his burden which is light. It is the yoke of love and dedication, service and sacrifice for others, it is the yoke and burden of the cross of each one and every day, which becomes bearable and light when we understand it and live with it and from it.
Learning from him means seeing life and ourselves only from Jesus. It means letting ourselves be filled by his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, to live as true children of God who know how to face the world, the worldly environment in which we have lived. Letting ourselves be filled by his Spirit involves identifying with him and allowing him to guide and accompany us at every moment of our lives.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, meek and humble in heart,
who prays to the Father with the simplicity of a child,
that you manifest your secrets to the simple and humble,
you invite to carry your yoke and learn from you.
I want to rest on you.
I’m not good at how to talk to you,
they don’t fill me with so many still speeches they make about you,
I don’t fully understand the clothes of the doctrines they attribute to you,
I don’t have the strength sometimes to walk like others walk.
I want to rest on you.
My sins hurt,
I am tormented by my shortcomings and miseries,
I am burned by wounds that I myself or others caused me,
I lack the strength to shout your truth in the four winds.
I want to rest on you.
I want to share with you the burden that oppresses me,
I want to put on your shoulders my tiredness and exhaustion,
I want to talk to you about my sorrows and my struggles,
I want to put in your presence my present and my future.
I want to rest on you.
I want to make my life an offering like yours,
I want to take your gospel seriously and carry the cross,
I want to be a source of comfort, joy and peace for others,
I wish to fulfill in all your will.
I want to rest on you.
Euphoric for my successes or crushed by my failures,
excited in my projects or defeated in my struggles,
considered by my qualities or belittled by my friends,
in any situation, I want to rest on you.
Because only You are my peace and my rest, my light and my way,
the truth that makes me free and the life that fills my expectations,
the water that soothes my thirst and the food that sustains me,
the word that guides me in the darkness of my nights.
I want to rest on you.
Lord, meek and humble in heart, give me a heart similar to yours, a heart in which everyone may fit within, that whoever looks at me may find you, that the weary and overwhelmed may rest in you through me, and that I may be the source of your relief and comfort for all my brethren. Amen.
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