Readings:
• Zech 9:9-10
• Psa 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14
• Rom 8:9, 11-13
• Matt 11:25-30
Where can we acquire truth and real wisdom? Where can we find true peace and rest? And where can we apprehend and possess authentic, lasting life?
These are questions that the ancient philosophers pondered and sought to answer, and they are the same essential questions facing us today. No matter how modern, enlightened, and up-to-date we think we are, the fundamental questions about the permanent things remain, for human nature remains the same despite the passing of centuries.
Jesus addressed these questions with a combination of paradox and sharp clarity. But he did so in such a pithy manner it might be easy to overlook how astonishing his remarks really were. However, first note that Jesus, in today’s Gospel, speaks in the form of a prayer to the Father, “Lord of heaven and earth.” Immediately prior (Mt 11:20-24), Jesus had chastised, even condemned, several cities—including Capernaum, the base of his ministry in Galilee—in which he had performed great miracles and yet was rejected: “But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Having issued a dire warning to the careless “wise,” Jesus then offered a gracious invitation to the careful “little ones.” In distinguishing between the “wise and the learned” and the “little ones” he drew upon the rich tradition of the Wisdom literature, which emphasized how true wisdom is found in humility and the fear of the Lord: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely” (Prov. 3:7). This approach was not anti-intellectual, but anti-prideful; it recognized that even great minds need to be guided by moral clarity. “Pride in knowledge and self-assertion make men unreceptive to grace,” noted Fr. Richard Butzwiller, SJ, in Day by Day with St. Matthew’s Gospel (Henry Regnery, 1964), “Humility is the necessary precondition for faith.”
In whom shall we trust? The One to whom all things—absolutely everything!—have been handed over, the Son who knows the Father and reveals Him to us. Jesus’ statement of self-revelation is so straightforward and assured, it nearly slips past us. It is a declaration of equality with the Father; it is, in short, a declaration of divinity. It is upon this foundation that the Son offers rest—lasting, real peace—to those “who labor and are burdened,” who are fatigued, overwhelmed and exhausted.
It brings to mind the words of Pope Francis: “I see the Church as a field hospital after a battle.” Or the description in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (in “East Coker”) of Christ as the “wounded surgeon” who “plies the steel” and whose sacrificial efforts are aimed at “resolving the enigma of the fever chart.” Again, the Wisdom literature provides helpful background, as heard in the responsorial Psalm: “The LORD lifts up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.”
But, a yoke? How can an instrument of manual labor provide relief and rest? We must recognize that everyone, whether they admit it or not, serve a master; each of us will have to answer for what we do and choose. For the Jews, the Law was the yoke taken up as their covenantal burden. What is the covenantal burden taken up by the Son? The Incarnation: becoming man, suffering, and dying for our sake. “He who was divine yoked himself to us through his humanity,” explains Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis in Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word (Ignatius, 1996), “When the Son’s yoke becomes ours as well, his Incarnation becomes our divinization.”
Which brings us to authentic, lasting life. The rest offered by Christ is the divine life and everlasting beatitude given by the Father to the children of God. Or, in the words of the Catechism: “The Beatitudes teach us the final end to which God calls us: the Kingdom, the vision of God, participation in the divine nature, eternal life, filiation, rest in God” (par 1726). Wisdom, rest, and life have a name, and it is “Jesus”.
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Learn from me. For I am meek and humble of heart (v 29). Words of Christ read for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. As you note it will be worse for Capernaum than Sodom on Judgment Day. God is the exclusive Being whose existence is identical with his essence. The identity of that essence and existence the Apostle John exclaims is Love (1 Jn 4:8). That Love is revealed as the identity of Jesus Christ. Capernaum and Bethsaida were given that revelation and rejected it. Sodom had no such blessing. The reason why simple knowledge of Jesus Christ then, or by his Word today, the Gospels is either saving or condemning. We believe because God has spoken is ancient Church doctrine included in the Catechism. Belief is not due to rationale. Reasoning is given after the fact. Rather it is the primordial acknowledgment that this goodness, this pure love, is Truth. Conscience is not the arbiter of this Truth. This Truth manifest to the human intellect in Christ is the arbiter of conscience. The Sacred Heart is the sign of that font of love, of all holiness, infinite, pure, meek, all suffering, irrepressible, an all consuming fire. What draws us is that love. Why didn’t those in Capernaum and Bethsaida? Who can fully explain the gift of God’s merciful love? I tell my parishioners we must constantly thank God for the treasure.