DAILY MEDITATION: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened…, and you will find rest”

Liturgical day: Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel text (Mt 11,28-30): Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened…, and you will find rest”

Fr. Julio César RAMOS González SDB
(Mendoza, Argentina)

Today, facing a world which decided to turn its back on God, in front of a world hostile to Christianity and to Christians, to listen to Jesus (who is the One who is talking to us in the liturgy or in the private reading of the Word) brings consolation, joy and hope in the middle of our daily struggles: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened…, and you will find rest” (Mt 11,28-29).

Consolation, as these words contain the promise of relief, which comes from God’s love. Joy, as they make the heart feel the security of faith in this promise. Hope, as walking in a world rebelled against God and ourselves, we who believe in God know that not everything comes to an end, although many “ends” have turned into “beginnings” of much better things, as His own Resurrection proves.

Our aim, a starting point to the love of God, is to be permanently united with Christ. This is the “yoke” of a law which is not based on the limited capacity of human motivations, but on the eternal saving willingness of God.

In this sense Benedict XVI tells us: “God has a will with and for us and it must become the measure of our willing and being; and the essence of ‘heaven’ is that it is where God’s will is unswervingly done. Or, to put it in somewhat different terms, where God’s will is done is heaven. Jesus himself is ‘heaven’ in the deepest and truest sense of the word—he in whom and through whom God’s will is wholly done. The gravitational pull of our own will constantly draws us away from God’s will and turns us into mere ‘earth.’ But he accepts us, he draws us up to himself, into himself, and in communion with him we too learn God’s will.” Amen!

Source: evangeli.net