Thursday, July 20,
2017
Today’s Gospel offers a
well-known and tender message from the Lord. (Matthew 11:28-30):
“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.”
This is a contrast, isn’t it, to
Jesus’ command for us to “take up your cross and follow Me.” The cross evokes
pain and struggle and difficulty, and there aren’t two many people who would
have trouble identifying the nature of the cross they carry. And I think that
is a good place to start—to be honest and forthright about the way we at times
feel crucified and nearly abandoned by God and by others. And I would like to
propose to you that we come from that place as we allow the beauty of
the Gospel passage today to penetrate our souls. The same Jesus who would at
one time cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” today speaks to us
in our life situations and says “come to Me.”
So often we take words or
passages that are familiar to us and pass them by thinking we know everything
they are meant to mean because we have heard them so many times before. And so
we have to stop and silence our minds and souls to hear the Lord speak to the
very pain of our lives. In this way, we approach the deepest way of learning—the
experiential. Jesus Christ speaks to you in your struggle and
difficulty, whatever it may be, and he says simply, “Come to me.” Don’t think;
rather, experience the call issued to you at this very instance in your own
life. “Come to me.”
The translation of Rilke’s
poetry* says that “When I paint your portrait, God, nothing happens.” BUT I can
choose to feel you.”
Choose to feel him today. Read
and reread the passage from the Gospel and allow its words to penetrate more
deeply into your soul than ever before. If necessary, take just one small
snippet and stay with it. How about “learn from me”---a type of learning that
is conducted without words, but rather transmitted with rays of love. Or
perhaps picture yourself yoked with Jesus as you take the next step in your
struggle.
He says “my burden is light.”
Does it feel light to you? If not, call out to heaven and beg that he show you
the lightness, the easiness, the rest.
Just a tiny piece of it will be
enough for today.
A final verse to day from “Rilke”*:
“All creation holds its breath,
listening within me,
because, to hear you, I keep
silent.”
God bless you!
*I am finding that as I make my
way through my volume of Rilke’s poetry that there are “translations” of his
poems that seem to be unique works of art in their own right, poetic art that
is more “inspired” by Rilke’s writings, than being a direct translation. The
quotes I offer you today are such examples, to be sure. That is also why I put “Rilke”
in quotation marks today. Needless to say, I am inspired by the poems that I am
reading in English, and, as usual, they send me back to our own scriptures as
well. But might we consider that these poems themselves are a form of
scripture? I think they are.
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