Meditation Minute

My Dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Gospel Reading: Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus said: “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.” 

Today, we learn about surrender.  So often we want to take on the world ourselves.  We think that we are strong when we do it on our own.  However, Jesus calls us to “come to me.”  To be strong, we must be meek and humble of heart.  Our strength is in our weakness.  Our strength comes from putting all our burdens in the hands of God.  This is not what we do well. The world tells us that to surrender is to be weak.  But when we surrender ourselves to God, we acknowledge that He is in charge and not us.  So often we face trials and tribulations in our daily lives. God allows us to experience these situations so that we can learn to become dependent upon Him. We can actually find true peace and happiness even in the face of resistance and hatred by others when we surrender to God. Jesus tells us that he will help us with the burdens of our load if we will take up his yoke. He has a tailored made yoke designed to free us from the heavy burdens of life. Yokes are made for two. This makes room for both you and Christ. There is nothing we can do without the aid of Christ.  The sooner we accept this, the sooner we will realize that he truly does lighten our load.  Only if we are willing, Christ joins in to help us with our life which sets us free from the heavy burden of sin. Any other load is crushing and weighs us down. It is through Christ that we find our worries removed and we can truly experience the joy of being united with Christ.

A Simple Prayer

Lord, my yoke is heavy and my load is burdensome.

Help me free myself from the burdens which hold me back

And give me strength to help free the burden placed on others.

Yours in Christ

Michael Marcon