"My Burden is Light"
Jul
6
Written by:
Sunday, July 06, 2008
14th Sunday Ordinary Time
July 6, 2008
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest...
for my yoke is easy and my burden light.
Matthew 11:29-30
This past Thursday I experienced a detached retina in my left eye. It happened quite suddenly, and while waiting for emergency surgery at OSHU I went almost completely blind in that one eye. It was as if a curtain were being drawn over that eye, until finally only a small bit of peripheral vision was left. It was terrifying! Part of the recovery was to keep my head in one position for a few days, and then to come to terms with the fact that I may never see clearly from that eye again, although the surgery was a success.
So I find myself taking an unwanted rest this week and having the time to reflect on how fast life can change for any of us. If this had happened while on pilgrimage last month, I would certainly have been blinded by it. The true life-altering events in our lives are usually not foreseen, but in a sense, every small cross, every decision we make, every prayer, every confession, every mass attended, every communion is a preparation for the great moment when our faith in God is put to the test.
Come to me and I will give you rest. God is not promising us we will not have burdens in life, but that he will share them with us. We are not alone. If we know that we are loved by someone, and that we are, in a sense, suffering for the person that we love, then our burden becomes lighter. Therefore, love is the key to not only enduring the misfortunes of life, but to being victorious over them. What it ultimately comes down to is that God will work everything to a final good, no matter how bad things may seem at the present. Our task then becomes to trust God by being thankful for the difficulties of life.
When a sudden misfortune strikes us or someone we love is going through a crisis, we may for a time feel disempowered and helpless, but in fact, we do have a choice. The choice God asks us to make is to trust him, and to entrust our burdens to him. When we begin to give our burdens are given to the Lord by an act of thanksgiving, they begin to become ways of expressing our love for him. Our trials then become an exchange of love, and that choice, that realization, in turn, makes any trial "a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light" because love conquers all things.
Father Gary