GOD’S YOKE & BURDEN

 We are God’s people. In Isaiah 64: it is written, Do not be so very angry, LORD, do not remember our crimes forever; look upon us, who are all your people! We have to grow deeper in God’s presence as in Colossians 2: 6-7, So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. If we have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord we have to live in union with Him and keep our roots deep in Him. We have to build our lives on Him and become stronger in faith as we were taught and be filled with thanksgiving. An example is a bamboo tree. It takes 5 years to grow the roots and grow deeper. In order to grow deeper we need to pray and read scriptures. We have to develop an attitude of gratitude and be thankful for everything in all circumstances. Statistics say that around the globe more than 2,000 people die in their sleep each year. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16 it is written, rejoice always. We have to make it a point to be present in community gatherings that help us grow in our faith. We have to submit ourselves to the Potter and imagine ourselves as the clay. We smile whenever we have trials because it is meant to transform us. We have to work on our character flaws. Let us consult Galatians 5:22-23 at all times since it tells us, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Also in Ephesians 4:1-4, I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call;… We have to be united with one another and live a life that others are better. We have to be kind in our words and choose the right language that do not destroy or malign. We have to love, accept and appreciate one another. We are the work of His hands and God’s people.  Our job is to welcome everybody in a loving relationship. We leave it up to God. It is His business not ours to bless and transform each person. He is able to make us into a brand new person if we allow Him. We are all called to be like eagles and soar high because they can fly above the cloud when they sense a storm coming. With all the cares and troubles of this world that face us daily we sometimes grow faint and weary and wonder when these things will come to an end. It is always a consolation to know that we can depend on an eternal God whose power is everlasting and to whom we can withdraw strength from. Today is a day of song and gladness, Hallelujah! From the first (On eagle's wings) to the psalm (Loving and Forgiving) and up to the gospel reading (Lift up Your Hands), they all have the lyrics of favorite Christian songs. God is indeed a God of awesome goodness that He wanted us to start this day with a song of joy and gladness in our hearts. What a confirmation that today all bible readings contain the lyrics of these famous Christian songs. This is one way of telling us that we should be practicing here on earth what we'll be doing for eternity which is singing happily together when we meet with God in heaven. You are incredible Oh God! Nothing compares to You, You are incomparable! Amen. Hallelujah!

Book of Isaiah 40,25-31.

To whom can you liken me as an equal? says the Holy One...The LORD is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint nor grow weary, and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny. He gives strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound. Though young men faint and grow weary, and youths stagger and fall, They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles' wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.

We can never fathom the wisdom of God but we can always remain confident in the truth that His kindness is perfect and everlasting. He makes all things work for good. When we feel so helpless, miserable and alone, never ever doubt that He can't help but be the loving God that He is. God loves us so much that he will adjust to our needs and make things work for good. There is no reason for us to even doubt and hold back anything from the Lord for nothing is too difficult for Him. If we are confident of God's Providence in our lives then nothing should even make us doubt that God is able to redeem us and take us out of misery. God has made known His kindness, mercy and secures justice for all. He knows exactly what we need at the precise moment and brings forth everything in its appointed time. Furthermore, God wanted to take our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. How far is the east from the west? Only God knows. We know that the distance is unfathomable, that’s what the Lord does with our sins. How much does He loves us? We know that His love and mercy is immeasurable. There is really none like our God. And reading part of the psalm reading made me remember the song "Loving and Forgiving". He is our best bet for always and there is no one or nothing else that could or should take first place in our lives more than the Lord. Whenever we receive goodness and kindness from people we meet we are very much delighted and pleased with it. How much more would we feel if we have God's favor resting upon us. There is nothing else better compared to this. We may search long and hard but we can never really find true satisfaction and remain restless unless we have God in our life. We only have to believe in God's kindness and mercy and we will surely see it happen in our life before our very eyes. He is our refuge and strength. To whom can we go but to God alone. The world’s point of view is very contradictory to the message that God wanted us to live by.  We need to pray hard for the desire to always follow what is pleasing before the Lord and not forget that it is what really matters first and foremost. We are so blessed that we did not live during the time when Christians were being persecuted and martyred and what we are enjoying right now are already the benefits of God's marvelous work wrought by His mighty hand. This is why we should stop complaining and just keep our hope if we truly believe that we have a God and Father who is full of kindness and goodness. This reminds me of the prophet Amos. He is a prosperous herdsman/farmer, well educated and traveled. His time (746-786) was an age of prosperity but severely marked with moral decay and spiritual bankruptcy. He experienced a luxurious life, lived in the garrison city a place dominated by people of power and had all the time to study the scriptures. He lived in affluence, belonged and embraced the "clan system/wisdom" which is a guild or crusade to maintain the purity of the tradition of the temple of Jerusalem which houses the "Ark of the Covenant". He saw the evil of excess in Tekoa, he witnessed the "left" (poverty) and the "right" (wealth and affluence) side. Being himself a dresser of the sycamore tree who worked with his people, he also saw the plight and injustice that is existent during that time. His prophetic mission emerged as an offshoot of his kingly and priestly status and was able to go through all these stages making him a good "nabi" hebrew word for prophet. We, too as followers of Jesus should also go through certain stages and fulfill our call or mission to be king, priest and prophet in our own personal lives. What I learned in the bible study about the very relevant and essential Hebrew word "pescher" which means repetitious study, reading and pronunciation of the word of God is a tool to achieve this goal and always be reminded about the goodness and benefits of being a genuine, equipped and well fulfilled follower of Jesus. The God of yesterday, today and forevermore. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalms 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10

R: O bless the Lord, my soul!

1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. (R) 3 He pardons all your iniquities, he heals all your ills. 4 He redeems your life from destruction, he crowns you with kindness and compassion. (R) 8 Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. 10 Not according to our sins does he deal with us, nor does he requite us according to our crimes.

As we continue the process of living, dying and the hope of resurrecting, we the church of God, the triumphant (angels and saints in heaven), militant (the living) and suffering (souls in purgatory) join forces in prayer in the hope that we will all someday be together in heaven. We can not deny the fact that we live in an imperfect world but in it also came forth a glorious array of men and women, the saints. I do believe that we can look after the example they left behind and ask at the same time their intercession in order for us to truly live the life of Jesus the way they did. The life of the Blessed Mother and the saints although they generally represent a life of sacrifice and sorrow from the world's point of view is in truth victorious and triumphant. You know why? I believe that they have learned the secret enclosed in today's gospel. By this time we may have experienced and witnessed a lot in life already to know that today's gospel is the best thing we ought to do. No one in this world can get away from problems and sorrow in life. Life here on earth is as imperfect as it is. We can not expect to live a life of perfect peace and happiness here on earth but we can surely make the best out of what we've got right here and now if we are to follow these words below in the gospel. There is really nowhere and no one else to go to but the Lord. We should have realized this by now if we have learned our lessons well. In times past when we have forgotten to surrender to God and depended more on our strength, skill and intelligence, we have seen the difference and the worst in the outcome of our actions. In whatever we do, for as long as we are not violating God's commands we must not forget to lift up everything to God in prayer and He will clearly show us the way. Why, because God said, come to me who you labor and heavily burdened… Our Lord looked at the people around fighting heavy battles, losing, carrying great burden and running out of strength. Sometimes life gets us down and causes us a tiredness of body and weariness of soul that no amount of sleep can rectify. On such occasions we hear Him say “Come to me let me help you carry your burden. Of course the problem with us is that we’re carrying burdens that we were never intended to carry. The burdens and the problems belong to Him. He is in charge of the world, not us. We can not solve problems on our own. We must realize that He alone can solve problems we could never solve. When Moses met God in the burning bush, Moses asked God “What is your name and whom shall I say sent me?” He said My name is “I am” not I was nor I will be but I am. God lives in the eternal now where it is neither past nor future. If we are going to realize that at this very moment God sees us not only at this lovely day He created but He sees us already dead, buried, judged and safely home with Him forever for the ecstasy that He has planned for us. He sees us now as we are worrying and fretting about a future that may never come. Moses told the Lord, who am I to go to pharaoh. But God was with Moses as He is with us. He said I shall be with you and He was with Moses, as He is with us, too. In the Angelus we say behold the handmaid of the Lord… These are the words of our Lady which she said and meant. Though, she has no idea what the Lord has in store for her, she allowed God to do what He has in store for her. Can we also say the same and mean it? God has a plan for us and that plan is filled with love. The Lord said I am meek and humble of heart. He has no ego problems like we have. We must realize that the most difficult problem is preoccupation with self. When we go into a room and try to impress everybody we come out and think how we fair in ourselves. We just have to let go. He wants us to work with Him in helping other human beings. The yoke is the 2 metal piece ring that links 2 animals.  It’s what happens to us when we give our help to the Lord, not what happens to whom we have helped. If we are blinded with selfishness we fail to accept the plan God has for us. Our desire to thank God is our gift and adds nothing to His greatness. Did we ever stop to think that the only thing that our Lord asks of us is humility. He said, learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for your soul. But we listen so easily to the father of lies. We imagine to find joy in what we pray in flattery, in the applause of the crowd and in riches. But what is humility? What is this vague, ethereal, intangible, supernatural virtue? It is simply the truth. The truth shall set us free.  And the truth about us is that apart from God we are nothing. We have nothing, we can do nothing. We have a body but we can not control it. We do not know when it will die. We have a mind but the bursting of a tiny blood vessel will make us imbeciles forever. We have a heart that can love but at times we have no control over it. It is hard, cold and unresponsive to the needs of others. But there is a positive side about this which is beautifully described by Father Faber, in Frederick William the English poet who became a Catholic after Cardinal Newman. He said, “There are some thoughts which however old they are, are always new. Either because they are so broad that they are never thoroughly learned or because they are so intensely practical that their interest is always absorbing. And such thoughts are for the most part very common thoughts. They require no peculiar keenness of vision for no one can fail to perceive them. They are like the huge mountains visible to everybody on the plain below. Now among such thoughts we may reckon that thought which every child would know that God loves each one of us with a special love. This is one of the most common thoughts in our religion and yet when we come to look steadily at it we find it very hard to believe. God does look at us in the mass and the multitude as though we stand single and alone before His judgment seat one day but before the eye of His boundless love. This is our faith.  This is the faith in which we must live and die. St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians that this mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus who although he is God emptied Himself taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2,6-11). Christ divested Himself of His dazzling beauty and glory and he was lost in the crowd and he was thought to be Mary’s boy and Joseph’s son. We are asked to empty ourselves of all that is false of all that is ignoble, all that is unreal so that we may become filled with Christ. Because nature abhors a vacuum and so does grace. We must be filled with something. Tragically we are filled with all kinds of desire, we want to be applauded, be promoted, we want to be consulted and we want to be loved. We want to be preferred to others. Look at all the fears that fill, stifle and paralyze us. We are afraid of sickness, growing old and of death. We are afraid of the thought of what comes after death. Don’t we remember Shakespeare, “To sleep for a chance to dream, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause to that undiscovered land from whose no traveler returned…” John the Baptist gave us our ideal, I must decrease and He must increase (John 3:30). All the foolishness, unreality, intolerance, the selfishness and all the sin that is in us must decrease so that we must fill the vacuum with our Lord who wants to share our life. He wants to be part of the trivia that make up our waking hours. Whatever happens to us happens to Him and He wants us to let Him share because only then will we find the rest that we pray. Things, places, circumstances and people are really interwoven by God in our lives in a very special way as if creating a wonderful picture and scenario. Like an intricate and beautiful artwork that is embroidered or woven into the fabric of our lives for us to witness, appreciate, get a message and draw inspiration and strength from. A long time ago St. Francis cried out loud, “He comes to His own today and receives Him not.” And so we live lives that are restless, confused, frustrated and unfulfilled because we do not share our lonely life with Him. So the prayer we learn as children that is said all over the world among Christians should be our prayer now, Oh Jesus meek and humble of heart make our hearts like unto Thine. Matters of the faith are very difficult to accept and understand for some people for they will always question and rationalize things. There are some things that can not be explained and we simply have to pray to God to reveal them in our hearts. This is why Jesus in today's gospel emphasized the importance of being like the little children. We, grown ups are always caught up in the cares and concerns of this world that we sometimes forget  who really is in charge of everything and tend to overpower God. The same way a child entrusts everything to his/her parents we, too should learn to trust that God our Father will take care of us. We can learn a lot from the children who are full of trust and confidence in their parents. If we will only learn the secret of the childlike then we can surely acquire the wisdom of God. If we always maintain in us a high level of confidence in God who is our loving Father then we are never far from achieving it. May we acquire the trusting attitude of the children and continue to discover the wonders of God’s love. As Catholics we have this great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which symbolizes the great love of God. Our Catholic practices can be found in the bible. God has made a covenant with His people and has been fathering us in order to bring us together into His loved flock in heaven. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is widespread all throughout the world. We are body and soul and need the external festivities. We have to remember that it's one thing to celebrate feasts and it's another to live His great love and make it alive in our daily lives. It has to be more than a mere devotion and celebration. We encounter people who have a condescending and sneering attitude towards popular devotion of the Catholic Church and consider them as meaningless routines. We are reminded through these devotions that there is no material or event in our lives that can not be directed for the greater glory of God. Although sometimes we come to a point when these practices and devotions that lift us up simply become like magic and opium for our troubles and miseries. We fail to grasp the essence of these devotions and treat them like the hypocrites in prayer and the pagans with some superstitious beliefs. Some Catholics fall into the trap of looking at these as a never fail prayer. Sometimes there is a magical or manipulative misuse like an abracadabra. It should not predispose us to a ritualistic behavior and must not lead us down to the path of nowhere. Although the absence of it may appear as we are like those idealists that once saved we are always saved so there is no need for such devotions. We may fall into the dangerous scenario as if we are putting God to the test. These devotions should be a means of communication between God and His people. God is not telling us to do away with these things but rather do it with a sincere and repentant heart. It should blossom into a relationship that is pictured in today's gospel. God is continuously searching for us and wants to bring us together in a family of love. Our devotions should develop in us a confidence to draw near to God as He invites us in today’s gospel. We have only one Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. It will save us great pain and suffering if we follow and obey Him. There is no other way, truth and life but Him. It's inevitable that we travel through life and take the journey but to choose to travel with or without Him makes all the difference. It is the wisest thing to do if we choose to be with Him all throughout for His burden is easy and yoke is light. Be wise. Amen. Hallelujah!

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”