Lord’s Day Reflection: ‘Gentle and lowly in heart’

By Fr. Edmund Power, OSB

Is it difficult for you to abandon yourself to the love of God? Today’s gospel is extraordinary: I mean by that that it stands as a fugitive piece with little apparent connection with what goes before and with what follows.

Jesus has been condemning the Galilean cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for not responding to his mighty works. Then suddenly his tone changes radically: we don’t know where he is, or what people are present. It’s as though he steps out of the framework of the gospel and stands before us.

His opening words are a prayer to the Father in the style of the fourth Gospel. This then shifts, almost indiscernibly, into an invitation, but addressed to whom? His words are cast out in a summoning that embraces everyone without exception: Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden!

And you, reader, do you not find yourself, at least occasionally, among such people? Is not the thought of being able to let go in trust, and be carried along attractive?

If we do come to me, what will we find? Well, various things it seems.

Firstly, there is the revelation of the Father, the abyss of creative love, whom only the Son knows; but the Son is well disposed to draw us into his knowledge. Secondly, there is rest. In a world of burdens and pressures, of demands and expectations, of fears and worries, there is simply rest. Jesus, it seems, is sensitive to our need for rest: in Mark he tells the apostles, come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while (Mk 6:31).

Is the word of God today bidding us to be more considerate towards ourselves? To accept our genuine needs and find a healthy balance? The third thing the Lord offers is his constant presence. He is not simply asking us to imitate him: learn from me. He seems to hint at an identification with him.

The last three verses, starting with come to me, are dominated by his presence: grammatically too, because his personal pronouns (me, I and my) are used seven times, infiltrating the text with his presence. Whatever we have to do, we will not be doing it alone.

Maybe the twice-mentioned yoke hints at the Cross: Jesus has already spoken of this (Mt 10:38) and will do so again (Mt 16:24).

But what is striking here is the simple injunction to imitate him in being gentle and lowly in heart. Could anything be more counter-cultural in a world of power politics, of military might and of arrogant assertion? Is such a way of living even possible?

Only if we believe St Paul’s words in the second reading: you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit. Only if our true allegiance is to a king … humble and riding on an ass (first reading).

If that is the case, maybe it is not so difficult to abandon ourselves to the love of God.

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