Breaking the Word

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Thursday in the 15th Week of Ordinary Time (I)
The Yoke of a Second Childhood

Readings: Exodus 3:13-20; Psalm 105:1 and 5, 8-9, 24-25, 26-27; Mathew 11:28-30

Yesterday our readings led us to reflect upon what we referred to as a second childhood. What does this mean? What difference is there between a second childhood and the first one? How does one enter into this second childhood? Our readings today offer us an opportunity to reflect a little more deeply upon these questions.

To begin with, we might consider the very consoling words of today’s gospel as the Lord’s invitation to us to enter into a second childhood. We find this a plausible conclusion to draw especially when we consider whom Jesus is addressing. He isn’t speaking to those who are blissfully free from responsibilities, those who might still be in their first childhood. His concern, at least in this passage, is for all you who labour and are overburdened. His invitation is for all those of us who might be anxious and stressed out to come to me… shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart…

Does this mean we are to return to the bliss of a first childhood? Does this mean that we are to relinquish all our responsibilities and be freed from every yoke? Or are we not being invited instead to shoulder the yoke of Christ? And let us be honest. Doesn’t this yoke often seem a much larger one? Consider what Moses is being called to do in the first reading. He too is being called to enter a second childhood, to trust in the God who encounters him in the burning bush. And in this call is also an invitation to take upon himself the responsibility, the yoke, not only of confronting Pharaoh and demanding the release of the Hebrew people, but also of seeing them safely into a land where milk and honey flow. How does this new responsibility compare with tending his father-in-law’s flock in Midian?

Even so, Jesus reassures us that my yoke is easy and my burden light. And God does the same for Moses in the first reading. Large as this new yoke might seem, God promises Moses that he will not have to bear it alone. I shall show my power, says the Lord, and strike Egypt with all the wonders I am going to work there. Incredible as these words might seem, God invites Moses to trust that they will indeed come to past, because of who God is, this I AM who is calling and sending him. This is none other than the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. In other words, this is a God with an impeccable track record. This is a God who has always been steadfast in showing mercy and compassion to their forefathers, a God who has always kept God's promises. This is the One whose yoke we are invited to shoulder, the Divine Parent, into whose gentle arms we are invited to enter.

How might we respond to this invitation to come to Christ and shoulder his yoke today?

1 comment:

UnknownThu Jul 19, 11:25:00 pm GMT+8
It is hard when reading the sermon not to recall the image of Simon being forced by the soldiers to help Christ carry the cross. I think it is said his reaction was "Why me?"

I'm sure Simon had his own burdens to shoulder but on this day, Christ's cross is thrust upon him and he journeys part way with the Lord, sharing the pain & hate, shouldering the yoke of the passion.

Oddly enough having read today's Word, I wonder if after the ordeal, Simon felt that his own burdens had somehow become lighter? That in bearing another's burden, he had been touched and Christ now helps him lift the weight off his own yoke.
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Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. This is also the reason for the series of liturgical texts found in both the Roman Missal and The Liturgy of the Hours (Vol. III - IV), for Sundays and weekdays in this season. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, 43-44

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19