Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Taking the Yoke That Leads

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 6.16.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Matthew 11:25-30

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
the Lord offers to relieve our burdens:
“Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest for yourselves.”
Jesus almost always speaks in paradoxes, and this is another one.
“I will put a yoke on you.”
Now, if I am burdened, the last thing I want
is a yoke that will make my life more burdensome.

But here’s the paradox:
What is it that makes our lives heavy and weighed down?
Precisely the burden of our own egos,
the weight of one’s own self.
When I am puffing myself up with my own self-importance,
I’m laboring under all that weight.
Jesus is saying, “Become a child.
Take that weight off your shoulders
and put on the weight of my yoke of my obedience to the Father.”

Here’s how it works:
If you have two animals yoked together when they’re both pulling,
they are doing each other’s work.
Jesus is saying that if your life is heavy and burdensome,
it’s probably because you are caught up under the weight of your own sense of self-sufficiency.
Get rid of that and take the yoke of Christ’s obedience upon your shoulders.
Allow yourself to be led.

[MurphsLaw]

+++At that time Jesus exclaimed:
"I give praise to you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to little ones.
Yes, Father, such has been your
gracious will.
All things have been handed over
to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father
except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son
wishes to reveal him.

"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."+++