You're listening to From the Friars podcast, the community of Francis and Friars of the Renewal headquartered in the Bronx, New York City. The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. At that time Jesus exclaimed, I give praise to you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him. 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, the gospel of the Lord. I greet you with the greeting of St. Francis, may the Lord give you peace. Good afternoon and welcome.
Good afternoon, and good afternoon. Good afternoon, and good afternoon. Good afternoon, and good afternoon. What is the one thing necessary, the love of Jesus?
Okay, that's the homily. In English, it's a little longer. In the name of the Son, the name of the Son is the king, and the name of the Son is the king. You may hear what sounds like angels bowling.
Sounds like the Archangel Gabriel just got a strike up there. It's the sound of food and flowers, huh? We thank God for the rain, the rain that gives us tasty things to eat and drink and beautiful things to look at. Food and flowers, thank you Lord for the rain.
My friends, there's something extremely profound being put before us in the Liturgy of the Church today. It's so good. In Jesus' preaching, He offers us two metaphors. These two metaphors are actually deeply related to each other.
The first one is praising God for revealing Himself to those who are little ones. In contrast to those who are smart. And how does He say it? The learned, the wise and the learned.
It's a little sarcasm from Jesus right there. Those who are so sophisticated, they think they've got it all figured out. No. God can't reveal Himself to people like that, but rather to simple, humble, little open, little ones.
And so there's the metaphor that Jesus will say, unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And then the second metaphor is so interesting. He talks about His yoke, His yoke. And He says something here, which to us we're not so aware.
But if you imagine the Jewish people of Jesus' time, Jesus is saying something here that's really evoking what God would say in the Old Testament. C.R.A.K. 51, God, wisdom and carnit will draw all to themselves to give rest, to take the light yoke of wisdom and of God. So Jesus' quoting scripture here.
But in the Bible, who is the one that gives rest? God. God alone. You think of the account of creation.
On the seventh day, God rested. And on the covenant with the people, He invites them into His rest. Jesus is making a divine claim. God is the one who offers rest.
God is the one. And Jesus is saying, I've come to give you this rest. You know, even as Catholics said, a funeral, we would say eternal rest grand unto them, O Lord. Let perpetual light shine upon them.
I mean, they're souls and the souls that are being departed through the mercy of God. Rest in peace. The rest that God gives. So Jesus is offering that rest.
And yet the metaphor of a yoke sounds like something the opposite of rest, right? A yoke you put on two animals to pull the plow. That's an image of work. But in this yoke that offers rest, Jesus makes reference to His own heart.
I'm meek and humble apart. Learn from me. How are these two metaphors connected? Well, in the Bible, the metaphor of the yoke is almost always a negative metaphor.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah, the prophet Jeremiah, it's always seen as a symbol of being oppressed by a dictator or by foreign power. You're being treated like an animal that works in the fields like a slave. And in the context of Jesus, He's correcting the Pharisees. It's so, how should I say it?
It's so ironic that the Jews had multiplied so many rules, so many practices and devotions. All of that was done in the name of serving God. But the irony is that in all these things to serve God did the opposite. It drove people away from God.
And the people had the experience of their religion as oppressive and burdensome. There are other places where Jesus will correct the Pharisees. You're putting all sorts of burdens on people and making it unnecessarily difficult. And so Jesus offers His yoke that offers us rest, the light and easy and light burden.
As I was praying over that, I was thinking of the yoke kind of like the cross beam of the cross. You can imagine that. And in our own context, the slavery of the yoke has to do with our sin. We heard that in the opening reading, the opening prayer.
Jesus rescues us from the slavery of sin. And Saint Paul in the second reading, the difference between living in the flesh, which is our struggle with sin. And I almost imagined sin being like a yoke. And the devil is back there with it.
Pull that plow. And that's the experience of living in sin to slavery. And to all of these slavery, Jesus comes to give us freedom. And it really is something powerful.
This yoke. And here's the image. That in the incarnation, God is no longer sitting behind us, whipping us as we pull the plow. Something is happening in Jesus where He now is coming.
And He's pulling the plow with us. That we're being yoked with His yoke. That means that the yoke is already on Him. And now He's inviting us to come.
And He's going to pull it with us. This is amazing that God would do this, that He would be with us in this way. And so at the end of these metaphors, here's the message. You don't have to live your life on your own power.
The things that we try to do to be holy, to be good, to live virtue, you can't do it on your own, or to resist temptation to sin. The weaknesses of our fallen flesh. We cannot do that on our own. And what Jesus offers us is something that no one else had ever offered.
He offers us the Holy Spirit and the help of His grace that comes and flows from His sacrifice on the cross. This is the easy and light burden that we're no longer going through life on our own power. And this is where the child metaphor comes in because when children are very little, they love to receive help from mom and dad. But then there's a moment of development.
You remember that moment? When the child is like, I can do it myself. And Jesus is inviting us to go back to the earlier stage, the type of relationship that God wants to have with us is like the little child who is so happy to receive the help of mom and dad, the little children whose legs are so short, they have to be carried. God our Father who wants to help us, that we're not going through this life on our own, apart from God.
That was the sin of Adam and Eve. We're going to grasp and take it ourselves. The minute the serpent started talking, they should have just turned to God, right then and there, help me. And that's the grace of Jesus, the grace of redemption, the grace of forgiveness and healing that we're yoked with Him, we're connected with Him.
He's walking next to us. He's with us, Emmanuel, God with us, no longer going through this life alone. During the Holy Hour, after Mass, I'm going to share a few stories from my adolescence where the Lord taught me this lesson in a very dramatic way. But on this 14th Sunday, we give thanks to God for the one thing that's necessary.
And that is the love of Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit, the grace of God, present and at work in our lives that He's with us and we pull the plow together. Amen. You've been listening to it from the Friars broadcast. The community of Francis and Friars, the renewal, please visit us at Francis and Friars.com or on social media, CFR underscore Francis Kins.