Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Your king shall come to you, meek, riding on a donkey. This is Zechariah's description of the entry into Jerusalem centuries before it happened. The king who comes without the apparatus of conquest - without chariot, without warhorse, the warrior's bow banished - is the king whose dominion will extend from sea to sea not through violence but through the proclamation of peace.

You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little ones. In your twenties the pressure to be sophisticated about the faith - to approach it with the critical apparatus the learned bring - can prevent the receiving that the little ones do naturally. There is a time for learning and a time for receiving. The receiving comes first.

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. The invitation finds you exactly where you are - in the specific labor and the specific burden of your particular twenties. The rest is not the absence of work. It is the exchange of yokes: stop learning to be yourself from the systems that produced the exhaustion and start learning from the one who is meek and humble of heart.

What are you carrying that belongs to the heavy yoke rather than the easy one? Name it. Bring it to the Lord who said I will give you rest. Then take the easy yoke and actually try to learn from the meek and humble one. One week of doing that looks like: come to me daily with the specific burden, exchange it, and do one thing that looks like meekness and humility.

Lord, I come - laboring and burdened. Give me rest. Let me learn from you. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us. Amen.