Yoking Ourselves, Our Labors and our Burdens to the Lord, Second Wednesday of Advent, December 10, 2014

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Bernadette Parish, Fall River, MA
Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
December 10, 2014
Is 40:25-31, Ps 103, Mt 11:28-30

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily please click below: 

The following points were attempted in this homily: 

• We mark in Advent a triple dynamism: Christ comes to us in history, mystery and majesty; we run out to embrace him; and then, having encountered him, we then go out united with him to complete the work he wants to do in us and through us for the salvation for the world. We ponder these triple reality in today’s readings. As Jesus is coming to us, he says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” Jesus calls us in the midst of our work, he calls us in the context of all our struggles and difficulties, to come to him to find rest our bodies and souls seed. But the rest Jesus offers is not what normally we would anticipate. For most of us we would anticipate that rest would mean a vacation from our labors or the elimination or a respite from our burdens. Jesus offers something else. It’s a yoke. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “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.” The yoke Jesus offers is something that will harness ourselves to him, so that we will do everything together with him just as a yoke binds two oxen to work together. That yoke is his Cross, which is not so much a sign of pain but of the love that makes even the pain of crucifixion bearable. To be united with the Lord who comes and calls us to come to him is to be united to that love that makes Jesus’ yoke of the Cross easy and light and what we bring to the yoke easier and lighter.
• Jesus calls us to yoke ourselves to him in such a way that we will learn from him his meekness and humility. Meekness is not weakness but the interior strength that leads one to the self-mastery that doesn’t need to fight back. It’s the strength of a martial arts expert who doesn’t need to pummel someone pestering him, but can just deflect some of the blows. It’s the agility of a Michael Jordan on a basketball court that can alter his path to the basket in the air even when defenders obstruct what he originally intended to do. Yoking ourselves to Jesus allows us to learn this meekness from him, so that in the midst of our labors and burdens we’re not mugged but like a black belt use what is thrown at us to help us achieve what we want to rather than to obstruct that goal. Yoked to Jesus our sufferings and work help purify us and help sanctify the world.
• Likewise yoked to Jesus we learn how to grow in humility through our work and burdens. The Season of Advent helps us to focus on humility as we prepare for Christmas and the unbelievable humility that God showed not only in taking on our human nature, but taking on great poverty, being born in a borrowed cave, placed in an ancient animal trough, wrapped in swaddling clothes rather than regal garments, eventually working himself as a carpenter, and experiencing the normal burdens of life. In all of these humbling circumstances, Jesus was carrying out his work of salvation, which is something each of us can and ought to learn from him, because we, too, united to him, can convert all the ordinary, humble circumstances of our day into opportunities to glorify God, love others, and grow in God’s image and likeness.
• The consequences of being yoked to Jesus are beautifully expressed by God through the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading. The Israelites are questioning whether they are “disregarded” by their God as they languish in exile. God first speaks about “his great might and the strength of his power” and then reminds them, “The Lord is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint nor grow weary.” When that God took on our nature to be yoked to us in an eternal communion, those divine properties can be gradually assimilated by us. Isaiah tells us that God “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.” When we are united to the Lord, when we learn from him humility and meekness, when we yoke ourselves to God’s love, then our burdens and labors don’t weary us the way they wear others. We get a holy stamina to keep running without tiring, to keep walking without fainting, to keep giving and serving without counting the cost, just as Jesus did with regard to us. This doesn’t mean that a deep spiritual life takes away the physical necessities of sleep, rest, eating and normal care, but it does give us an energy, a motivation that can keep us going. The fundamental reason is because we start to do things for God and for others rather than for ourselves. We start focusing on God’s glory and others’ good more than our own comfort, and we find within not just a deeper human reserve than we were aware of, but a vastly greater spiritual reserve given by God. This is the source of the energy of the great saints, what made St. John Paul II vigorous and willing to continue flying across the Globe with Parkinson’s season. This is what led Blessed Mother Teresa to keep serving until her late 80s. This is what allows so many consecrated men and women — for whom we are praying in a special way this Year for Consecrated Life — to continue teaching and caring well past retirement age with an infectious joy that constantly rejuvenates. That happens because they’re yoked to Jesus in prayer, in the sacraments, in the Word, in charity and that’s where they get their energy.
• Today as we come forward on this Mass Jesus comes to us from heaven and tells us, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” It’s here in the Eucharist that he yokes himself to us. It’s here he gives us repose. It’s here that we ponder in a special way his incredible humility hiding under the appearances of bread and wine and his meekness in adapting his care to us just as we are today. It’s from here that he wishes to send us out yoked to him to do our work, to run without growing weary and to walk without fainting, all the way home to heaven!

The readings for today’s Mass were: