Yoking Ourselves to Christ to Run and Not Grow Weary, Second Wednesday of Advent, December 11, 2019

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
Memorial of Pope St. Damasus
December 11, 2019
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: 

• As we have been discussing, in Advent there is a triple dynamism: Christ comes to us in history, mystery and majesty; we run out to embrace him; and then, having encountered him, we 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 this 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 the rest our bodies and souls need. 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-fitting 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 meekness and humility directly from him. God’s great strength is not exercised in the way the strong of the world often flex their muscles. We see the way Jesus himself exercises his strength in the Gospel. Meekness is not weakness. The Greek word for “meek” means the self-discipline and power of a martial arts expert, or a tremendously agile athlete, of a well-trained, docile horse, capable of action and reaction at a simple bump. Real strength is not shown in pummeling any and all adversaries, but often in resisting doing so even though one could. That’s why St. Paul will say about Christ crucified, that he is the power and the wisdom of God. 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 beaten down 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 offering our work and burdens for the service of others. 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 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. When we do things motivated by love, those burdens are not only lighter but sweeter. 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 St. Mother Teresa to keep serving until her late 80s. This is what allows Pope Francis to keep the schedule he does, two days from his 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination and six days from his 83rd birthday. This is what allows you to keep going, late into the day, caring for women in need. This is what helps so many priests and religious, lay leaders of St. Vincent de Paul conferences and many other disciples to continue teaching and caring and serving well past closing time or 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.
• The ones who show us most profoundly the type of life-changing Advent yoking to which we’re called are the martyrs, who even in the midst of all their sufferings bound themselves to Christ in his power and wisdom on the yoke of the Cross. St. Damasus whom we celebrate today was the pope who adorned all of their graves in the catacombs and made it possible for the hordes of pilgrims coming to Rome to visit and venerate their mortal remains. We can learn a lot from this important phase in Church history. After the legalization of Christianity by Constantine in 313, many were becoming Christians because Constantine wanted Christians in his civil service, because Christians up until that point would never lie and he wanted trustworthy people around him. Whereas prior to the legalization of Christianity, the only people who were becoming Christians were those who were willing to die for their faith, many after the legalization were getting baptized in order to get ahead. So there was a backlash among many Christians who thought that the practice of the faith was becoming diluted. There were two things they did. First, they started to go out into the desert as monks. Advent is a season in which we’re all called to have desert days, days of prayer, days of recollection, to make sure we’re not caught up in spiritual worldliness. The second thing they did was to venerate the martyrs, those who gave the supreme witness of the faith for him who previously died for them. We, too, need during this Advent to remember the martyrs and to imitate them, as Pope Damasus tried to inspire the whole early Church to do. St. Damasus is also known for authorizing St. Jerome to translate the Bible anew from its original languages into the common language of the people, Latin (the “Vulgate”), so that people would be able to yoke themselves to God through his word. We ask for his intercession today to let God’s word become flesh in us, especially the Word proclaimed to us today.
• Christ invites us to yoke ourselves to him in wisdom and courage so that we might bear similar fruit as yoked we go forward. And Jesus does that yoking principally through the Mass. The word in Latin for yoke is jugum and the expression to be yoked with someone is conjugum. That’s where we get our term “conjugal,” or “spousal,” because husbands and wives are yoked together for the rest of their life in one flesh. It’s here at Mass, in the consummation of Jesus the Bridegroom’s spousal union with us, his Bride, that we are yoked to him. It’s here in the Eucharist that he yokes himself to us with all our labors and burdens. 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: