14th. Sunday of Year (A)
(Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30)
My dear
People of God, in the Gospel reading you have just heard Jesus was addressing
His Father in the first two verses:
I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them
to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.
In the next
verse Jesus was speaking about His Father:
All things have been delivered (entrusted) to Me by My
Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the
Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
And
finally, He was speaking directly to us when He said:
Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden,
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 your
souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
In those
final words Jesus promises rest to the weary and burdened; but notice, He
speaks not of the physical rest commonly experienced, He speaks of a “rest for
your souls”, a rest transcending all the terror and turmoil of this world, all
the secret anxieties and anguish of our minds and hearts.
How are the
weary and burdened to find this unique and definitive rest?
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek
and humble of heart.
Jesus’
teaching, People of God, can be summarized as follows: all who are wearied and
overwhelmed by troubles -- deserved or underserved -- should turn to Jesus for
true rest. The rest He promises is neither bodily nor even mental, no, He
promises rest for the soul: a rest that cannot be overwhelmed by physical
burdens or mental stress, nor can it be compromised or embittered by
them. This most wonderful rest -- even in the midst of trials and
tribulations of all sorts -- is a rest from the assaults and depredations of
sin, a rest before, and with confidence in, God; a rest only for those who will
take Jesus’ yoke upon themselves, it is for those who, by putting their faith
and trust in Him and striving to live according to His word, allow themselves
to be gradually formed in the likeness of their Lord by His most holy Spirit.
There are
many people today who, far from wanting that gift of peace from Jesus, desire,
above all, to feel thrills of pleasure and excitement – hence they resort to
drugs, to glorying in whatever moments of pride, power and prominence,
satisfaction and sensuality may come their way; and, as a result, they never
cease to weary and burden themselves with further troubles; with sins,
new and old, constantly being stirred up and exacerbated by such striving
for earthly, sensible, and passing satisfactions. For, as those
sought-after moments of excitement, pleasure, and exultation inevitably become
less frequent and less satisfying, they find themselves more and more aware of
a gnawing fear of that inevitable time when -- either through old age or
suffering, or even through the dreadful curse of boredom -- weariness will
cloud over their search for worldly fulfilment and they will find themselves
empty, embittered, and alone, being forced to recognize that what they once had
considered best and most desirable has finally shown itself to be both empty
and unfulfilling.
And yet, my
dear people, rest is not the greatest gift Jesus offers, nor is it the supreme
secret He has to teach us. You will remember that for the greater part of
our Gospel reading Jesus was speaking to or about His Father. To the
weary and overburdened He offers rest first of all, indeed; but for those who,
having become His disciples and, through faithful perseverance, have also begun
to experience something of His rest, He puts before them the prospect of
a far greater blessing yet to come. For it is His desire, not simply to
give them a foretaste of heavenly rest here on earth, but to lead them to
experience something of the glory and splendour of their heavenly and eternal
fulfilment in His Father’s presence:
All things have been delivered (entrusted) to Me by My
Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know
the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
People of
God, “no one knows the Father except the Son”, that we can understand; but what
follows is the supreme manifestation of the infinite love of God, namely, the
fact that the Son chooses to reveal the Father to His faithful and persevering
disciples. In fact, He makes knowledge of the Father -- that is, a
personal appreciation of, relationship with, and responsiveness to, His Father
-- a sign or token of authentic discipleship: true disciples of Jesus should
know their heavenly Father in such a P/personal way because Jesus has taught us
that, in order to pray as His disciples, we must learn to use and to mean
the word ‘Father’ as he would have us, in the prayer He gave us as the
norm and model for all our prayers.
We can
glimpse further along this road of true discipleship if we consider the words
of the apostle Philip who once said to Jesus:
Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. (John 14:8)
Philip was
indeed orientated in the right direction, because he did long to see the
Father; but Jesus was truly disappointed at the little progress Philip seemed
to be making, and His disappointment was such that He suggested that Philip
hardly knew Him at all:
Have I been with you so long, and yet you still do not
know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say,
'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the
Father is in Me?
(John 14:9-10)
Jesus
obviously considered that His whole life’s mission was to make the Father
Personally known and loved; and, consequently, He found it both disappointing
and frustrating that Philip who -- as a chosen apostle -- had both shared His
presence and experienced His teaching so intimately and for so long still
seemed unable to recognize the Father in Jesus Himself.
People of
God, this awareness of and love for the Father is what Jesus longs to see in us
above all else; but it is a shared knowledge, shared by Jesus with us: it can
never be our own possession, it is ours only in, with, and through Jesus.
Therefore, if we have no longing for the Father, no desire to see Him, no
awareness of His beauty, wisdom, goodness and power, then we have not yet come
to know Jesus. Jesus’ gift of rest for the weary and the burdened is as
nothing compared to that which His very being cries out to bestow: that is,
knowledge of and love for His and our, your and my, Father.
Jesus knew
full well that it was His Father Who sent His disciples to Him (John 6:44):
No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me
draws him.
and Jesus
the Son longed to reciprocate. He desired above all else to bring those
the Father had entrusted to His care to recognize the One Whose call had led
them unknowingly thus far; and in coming to recognize Him as Father, to love,
praise and serve Him as true sons and daughters of His, with and in Jesus, by
His Holy Spirit:
Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and
anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
Philip,
Jesus feared, apparently knowing so little of the Father, could not, as yet,
have come to know Jesus Himself truly, despite such close proximity and
intimate communion with Him.
People of
God, how long have you been receiving the Eucharist? Have you really come
to know Jesus: not with mere book knowledge, not with a knowledge of ritual and
prescriptions, but with a living, loving, personal knowledge? If you want
to know the answer, it is not hard to find. Do you love, long to know
more of, the Father? If not, then no matter what facts or opinions you
may know about Jesus, no matter how long you may have been attending Mass and
receiving Communion or practicing devotions and doing good works, you still
have not come to know Him anywhere near well enough.
Dear
people, ask Jesus to help you come to know the Father. There can be nothing
more fulfilling and glorious than such knowledge of the all holy, all wise,
totally beautiful and infinitely good God, because such knowledge,
appreciation, and love, is, actually, the unshackled presence of the Spirit,
the bond of love between Father and Son, dwelling and active within each of
us. That is the beginning, even here on earth, of heavenly life and
beatitude, and here St. Paul’s advice (1 Corinthians 12:31), is sublimely
pertinent and helpful:
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
But I shall show you a still more excellent way.
What is
that way? You will well remember how Paul went on (13:13) to describe it:
Faith, hope, love (caritas), remain, these three; but
the greatest of these is caritas.
Caritas, charity, is the word for that
heavenly love for the Father of which Jesus has been speaking to us in the
Gospel today. Follow Paul’s advice: seek the Father in Jesus and seek
Jesus in the Father; for, for those who find, that is not just rest in
present toils, People of God, that is a foretaste of Life itself, eternal, and
glorious.
