I wish you to make special note of this gospel reading in connection with what you've heard read from the first reading. That is how Moses was asked to do a tremendous and impossible task, and god said, you can do it because I'm with you. The lord be with you. And also with you. A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew.
And Jesus spoke as follows. This is our lord speaking, and he certainly is speaking to each one of us. Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Notice, not just make it tolerable, but he will refresh us. He will make us new.
And then our lord continues. He says, take my yoke. A lot of people never even seen a yoke. It's a horrible looking thing for oxen. Huge, heavy, hunk of wood made of the strongest kind of wood, so it's heavy as the dickens.
And our lord says after he's telling us that if we if we follow him and come after him, we will find weary as we are and burdensome as we find life, he will refresh us. And then he continues, but take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls, that means your whole person, will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That's the good news of our lord for today. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
I'm enthusiastic about this text because it fits in so perfectly with what I tried to say yesterday on the feast of Saint Bonaventure and doing the work of the Lord, the opus day in the here and the now, Moses and the burning bush, how life was changed, completely changed for Moses when he recognized the voice from the burn not that he just heard a voice, but that he recognized that voice from the burning bush. Now today's reading follows that from Exodus. And our blessed lord having established his credentials, we might say, now tells Moses what he's supposed to do. Now remember, Moses just is just an an unknown, ignorant shepherd, a very dubious parentage with a wonder but with, we have to admit, a peculiar background being picked out of the Nile by the pharaoh's daughter. But look where he winds up, and this barren forlorn desert becomes a holy place.
He takes off his shoes by God's command, and he recognizes that that those burning sands by day and icy sands by night, this dreary, weary, burdensome life, it is all changed, a complete metamorphosis, complete. And now that scene continues today. When our lord when god speaking to Moses from the bush first tells Moses who he is, and when you ask what is god, who is god, you can't improve on this definition of god. I am who am. And that became god's name in Hebrew, which the Hebrews wouldn't pronounce, so they coined the word Adonai.
But the the closest we have, the closest description or definite we have no definition of god, of course, not in any real sense. But the closest thing we have to a definition of God is what God gave as a definition of himself. I am who am, the fullness of being, the uncaused cause in whom or as a a scholastic would have said, a pure actuality. You can't improve on it. You'll say, yes, but that doesn't appeal to my imagination.
You bet it doesn't appeal to your imagination. You can't imagine God almighty. People try, and what do you wind up with? A god made after the image of man, anthropomorphism. And now today, we have this tremendous scene, first of all, where God tells Moses who he is, I am who am.
And then he lays this tremendous job on Moses that this this shepherd up there in the hills, a nobody has no position, no money, no authority, no family. He's absolutely a nothing. And god tells him, you're gonna go up and tell Pharaoh to let my people go. What does Moses say? How can I do that?
First of all, my own people will laugh me to scorn. My own people won't take me seriously. They they have no respect for me. Who am I? And then you tell me to go to pharaoh, the king of Egypt, the the mightiest nation of the world that day, and tell him what to do when you when you've just told me how he's persecuting the people, my my fellow Israelites, and I'm supposed to tell Pharaoh, let them go.
I'm gonna lead them out of this country. How crazy can you get? And most of time said, you can do it. I'll be with you. Folks, this is tremendous stuff.
Believe me. We'll only take it seriously because it has such terrific application in our daily lives. Tie this in now with what our lord said about carrying a yoke. Notice he doesn't say I'm gonna take the yoke off your shoulders, and I only wish I had a yoke here, it would take a crane to lift it. To show you what so our lord makes he doesn't make any bones about this.
He's not he's saying, I'm not gonna take the yoke off your shoulder. You've gotta take that yoke. Notice, you take it. You have to accept it. See, every word here counts.
It's loaded, they're loaded with meaning. You say, Yes, but gosh, look how I get clobbered. Look All of us get it in the neck once in a while, and that's no play on words for the yoke. You say, I have no choice about it. Oh, yes, you do.
You have a tremendous choice. Somebody said, What's the difference between the grinding wheel that grinds the diamond to powder, and then and the same wheel which makes it into a precious gem. It's all in the grinding. And so this message of our lord today, take it to heart. The opus day, the work of the lord is today.
I am who am. I'm not who I'm going to be tomorrow or what or yesterday. The only person I have anything to say about is the me of today, if you'll pardon the accused of the case, and do something about it. You see, I told you about Saint Bonaventure yesterday. Saint Bonaventure didn't fit into the ordinary picture of the time.
He's called the doctor seraphicus, the seraphic doctor. Why? Because he leaned not so much toward rationalism, intellectualism, the dry bones, as some refer to it, I resent it, dry bones scholastic philosophy and theology that was very current in those days, and that men took tremendously seriously, batting each over the head with syllogisms. But Saint Bonaventure emphasized emphasized grace in our lives, the influence of God in our lives. He didn't he he was absorbed with the thought of God and the supernatural order.
Now remember, that's where we are really. We're put into it by baptism. And when our lord today tells us to take up the yoke, he's not speaking to us as natural men and women. He's talking to us as regenerated men and women who have the spirit of the holy ghost in ours, who have our heavenly father, and who have a savior in Jesus Christ. Here is your answer to suffering.
The yoke is evil. It's suffering. As I said the other morning, the only answer to evil and suffering is Jesus Christ. No philosopher ever came up with a successful answer to it. And so Bonaventure pulled that straight.
He was not the intellectual of an Aquinas or an Albert the Great or Donskotis. He was much more a mystic, whatever that word means, don't ask me. But that's what he's called. But we have some idea of that. It's a it's an approach to God which eliminates the middleman, put it that way.
And that's what Bonaventure insisted upon. Of course, he was he was largely an August an Augustinist. But the thing is, we that's the order in which we are. We're not in the order of a natural philosopher or a natural theologian. We are children of Jesus Christ, heirs of our heavenly father, born again in baptism.
We live in a community of saints, past and present, known and millions unknown. And that's where we live and move and have our being. And our blessed lord today says tells us, look. You've got your yoke, but now it's up to you how you bear it. You're going to you're going to carry it one way or the other, you know.
How? But it's up to you to make a choice of what you do with it. And he's telling us that if we bear it with him, notice with him, not under his shadow, but with him. He he is he is with us just as god was with with Moses going to Pharaoh and doing the impossible. Of course, god does ask us to do the impossible.
We're doing the impossible all the time. Faith in many ways is an impossible thing, naturally speaking. But we're not in the natural order. We're in the supernatural order. We have to remind ourselves of that from time to time.
This was the great thrust upon a venture. And so today, really, folks, on this beautiful morning, take these words to heart. Life is burdensome. We get weary. I don't care what job you have, what your vocation is, whether you're married or unmarried, whatever.
Whether you have good health or poor health or whatever, we all have a somewhat of a share in the whole caboodle. But our lord is saying, look, if you follow me, if you pick up that yoke and that burden with me, notice what he says, I will refresh you and you will find it light. May it be so. In the name of the father and of the son and of holy spirit. Amen.