God's Word for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls

14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Matthew 11:25-30

At that time Jesus exclaimed, 'I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children.

26 Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.

27 Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.

29 Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

30 Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.'

See your king comes, humble and riding on a donkey.

The Lord supports all who fall and raises all who are bowed down.

The Spirit of God has made his home in you.

Come to me all who labour and are overburdened.

Jesus, where are you?

Jesus was the first to experience what many have experienced. The poor and the weak listen to his Word. Jesus failed to convince the rulers. “Has any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob who knows nothing of the Law – there is a curse upon them” (John 7:48). He realized that God favours the poor, meaning the ignorant, the afflicted, those ‘who have nowhere to go’, the last in society. “How hard it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven”. Is it because ‘where your treasure is there is your heart’? Throughout history purity of religion comes with poverty and persecution. Wealth, as in the Middle Ages, corrupts the Church. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim 6:10).

Jesus is the heart of our religion. He says, “Come to me”. It is to Jesus we have to go. It is not to an organization, or a social group. Catechism is not the centre, nor is ritual, traditions, and laws. We have to come to Jesus. You might study catechism, hear homilies, attend Bible or theology classes, but you learn from Jesus only. Jesus says: “learn from me”. He is a patient teacher. He is gentle and humble and will give rest to those who learn from him.

But this raises a question. It is lovely hear, ‘Learn from Jesus’. We can see priests, enter churches and watch preachers on television. But where is Jesus to learn from him? Jesus can’t be seen and so we have identified his religion with what we can see – the church organization whether the universal Catholic Church or some other denomination. We have identified being a ‘devout Catholic’ with going to Mass on Sundays. We have estimated the number of believers by the number of baptized. Jesus said: ‘it is not those who call me ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven’. If we don’t enter the kingdom of heaven what is the point of being Catholic or Protestant?

Jesus says ‘come to me’ - not you who consider yourselves the ‘wise and the learned’ but you who ‘are mere children’. We come humbly like the publican in the temple who would not raise his eyes to heaven. We search for Jesus in humble and personal prayer each day as we listen to his Word. We allow his Word to be alive and active in us and to judge the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12). This will only happen if the Holy Spirit makes his home in our hearts and we are docile to his leading.

Are you willing to put everything aside to search for Jesus in personal prayer? Are you willing to make Jesus the Lord of your life that he may be your Saviour too?

Father, may I find Jesus in prayer so that I may learn from his Word.