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Fr. Andrew 14Th Sunday of OT. Year A. Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30 Whenever I Hear These Words from Our Gospel Today, “Come to Me

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Fr. Andrew 14Th Sunday of OT. Year A. Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30 Whenever I Hear These Words from Our Gospel Today, “Come to Me Fr. Andrew_14th Sunday of OT. Year A. Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30 Whenever I hear these words from our Gospel today, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest,” I think back to Handel’s work Messiah, as there a gorgeous setting of this text in Handel’s oratorio, sung between the soprano and alto. And there is another a wonderful choral piece in Messiah set to final line of our text today, “For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” “I will give you rest”; “My yoke is easy and my burden light”; especially in times of great unrest or anxiety, Jesus’s words lift our spirits and calm our hearts. His words fill us with the hope of knowing, deep within, that God walks with us and understands the complexities of our lives; and so whatever we face, we are never alone. Our faith is a constant invitation to know, evermore deeply within our soul, that we each matter, that we are each beloved. We are loved personally and uniquely by our Father, just as Jesus knows the Father and lives in intimate union with Him. And we are loved by Him who is Lord of Heaven and earth, as Jesus also speaks of the Father, and these descriptions suggestion a sense of grandeur and majesty. Our Heavenly Father is He who is the creator of all things and is through whom all things exist and have their being is, at the same time, deeply personal to us and with us. Our invitation is simply to “Come” to Him, He who is everywhere and utterly beyond us and our ability to ever fully grasp or understand is intimately close, closer than we are even to ourselves. By virtue of our baptism in His life, He grafts Himself into our very being and He promises to 1 remain with us always. From the moment of our baptism onward, our lives are a journey to come to Him, with our joys and with our burdens, for He is always there with open arms. There are so many things in life that seek our attention or can attract and draw us, but the one thing-the one person-who truly stills the restlessness of our hearts is our Lord Jesus; our friend, our brother, our Savior who strengthens us and carries our crosses with us and with Him, every burden is light! As Pope Francis has said, “When Jesus enters life, peace arrives, the kind that remains even in trials, in suffering. Let us go to Jesus; let us give him our time; let us encounter him each day in prayer, in trusting and personal dialogue; let us become familiar with his Word; let us fearlessly rediscover his forgiveness; let us eat of his Bread of Life: we will feel loved; we will feel comforted by him.”1 In a very special way today, as our RCIA candidates are confirmed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they become more deeply connected with Jesus’s own life, a life of communion, a life of love, a life that began with your baptism. Through the laying on of hands and the anointing with sacred chrism, they are marked as now totally belonging to Christ. And as they are strengthened with the gifts of the Holy Spirit today-wisdom, understanding, prudence, courage, knowledge, reverence, and wonder & awe-God sends them out to be witnesses, through their own unique ways and journeys through life, of His love for all the world. 1 https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2017/documents/papa- francesco_angelus_20170709.html 2 We come to Jesus and find our rest in Him through the witness and example of others. As our candidates receive the fullness of Christian initiation today, their full membership in Christ’s Body-the Church- is complete, and this completion is now a summons to lead others to God by how they live! God’s very purpose instituting us as the Church-each one of us-is to unite all things in Himself and bring the world into the peace of His life, into His rest! It is an extraordinary mission we share, with our unique and different gifts, experiences, and perspectives, yet always united in solidarity as members of His Body, united in dignity as His beloved daughters and sons. Our mission as the Church to bring all the world to know God calls us to be like little ones, not in a naïve or timid or passive way, but in simplicity of heart and mind, depending on the one who is far greater and wiser and trustworthy, our Heavenly Father. Jesus is very clear that we know God by opening our heart to His presence and by trusting in His goodness; we know God by getting outside our ourselves and, at times, our narrow and selfish ways of thinking, so that we can more authentically understand and encounter each other. The “wise and the learned” Jesus cautions against are those who think they have all the answers and know better than anyone else, those who have a closed view of God and so box Him into their own expectations. Rather, the “little ones” are those with open minds and hearts, those able to be surprised by His goodness, those who humbly go to Him to be strengthened 3 and nourished by His life, those who allow themselves to be healed and lifted up with His mercy and forgiveness! As little ones, we never give up no matter how difficult the crosses of our lives can be, and we never lose sight of the truth that all of our blessings flow from Him. And so, we bring everything to Him, and with Him, sharing in His life and sharing in our common mission as His Church, we find our rest. God bless you, all! 4 .
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