GOD’S WORD

July 17, 2014 – Thursday 15th Week in Ordinary Time

1st Reading: Is 26:7–9, 12, 16–19

Let the righteous walk in righteousness. You make smooth the path of the just, and we only seek the way of your laws, O Yahweh.

Your name and your memory are the desire of our hearts. My soul yearns for you in the night; for you my spirit keeps vigil.

When your judgments come to earth, the world’s inhabitants learn to be upright.

Yahweh, please give us peace; for all that we accomplish is your work. For they sought you in distress, they cried out to you in the time of their punishment.

As a woman in travail moans and writhes in pain, so are we now in your presence.

We conceived, we had labor pains, but we gave birth to the wind. We have not brought salvation to the land; the inhabitants of a new world have not been born.

Your dead will live! Their corpses will rise! Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust!

For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits.

Gospel: Mt 11:28–30

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For my yoke is easy; and my burden is light.”

Reflection:

Carrying things tends to weary us in the long run. That’s why it is wise to unload some of these burdens from time to time, to give ourselves breathing space and recover our strengths. People tend to hold on to their burden especially the psycho-emotional ones. They occupy precious space in the heart and grow heavier through the years. But the yoke of Jesus is light for one burdened only by the demands of love. Since love is a power that can do all things, bear all things and suffer all things, it can lighten even the heaviest of load. Love makes everything good and light.

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