July
5
[media
presentation below]
GospelThink
Sunday,
July 5, Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
MATTHEW
11:25-30
“Child-Like”
and Rest in the Lord
Prayerthoughts
a.
“These things” refer to the “important things in
life.” What are the three most important things in my
life right now? In what way is God helping me with them?
b.
The Lord wants us to be “childlike.” It means that we
must become vulnerable and marginalized so as to want to
receive the Lord’s message. In what ways can I pay more
attention to the Gospel in my life?
c.
Being childlike implies that there is no deception in the
way I speak. Is there any situation in my life in which I
should be more honest?
d.
Continually in the Gospel Jesus refers to his closeness
with the Father. Who are the people that I am closest to in
my life? I should tell them how special they are sometime
this week.
e.
Do I come to the Lord in silent prayer as much as I could?
f.
What schedule should I set up in order to make the Gospel
mzore real to me?
g.
What is most burdensome to me at the present time? What am
I doing about it? What should I be doing about it?
h.
Have I truly placed the Lord’s yoke on my shoulders, that
is, have I tried to follow all of the Lord’s directives
in my life?
I.
The Lord is gentle with me. Should I be more gentle in the
way I go about treating people?
j.
My prayerthoughts….
Today,
I will read Romans 8:9,11-13 and write an important thought
from it.
+++++
Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
AVOIDING
THE YOKE
Introduction:
confessions at St. John’s
+
I was hearing confessions at St. John’s parish in
Lawrence, KS a couple years ago
-
Saturday afternoon, KU playing, thought it would be slow
and it was
-
reading, preparing for a homily
-
the confessional was a small room where you could go either
face to face or behind a screen
-
suddenly someone knocked on the door / you don’t knock on
the door of a confessional / you go in / I knew this person
either hadn’t been to confession for a long time or was
not Catholic
-
when I said, “yes”, four young people came in, ran in
almost
-
scared out of their wits
-
they were all 8th/9th graders I guessed, two boys and two
girls
-
all dressed the same way: black leather, black T-shirts,
black baggy jeans, ear rings, chains, tattoos
-
actually they scared me more than they were scared, I think
-
one of them asked: can you talk to God?
-
I said “yes, I think so, but so can you”
-
they said, “oh no, God won’t talk to us, but we have to
talk to God”
-
I asked them what the problem was
-
a lot of words, finally got out of them that their
“gang”—actually they were “wannabe” gang
members—had taken part in some Satanic worship in which
they had sacrificed an animal to Satan, and now they were
afraid of what might happen to them
-
I didn’t do much except assure them that as long as they
turned to God right then, it really didn’t matter what
they had done in the past
Where
do we go when we need rest?
+
What impressed me was where they came when they were that
anxious—to church, to God in a way, although they didn’t
think God would listen to them
-
where do we go when we are burdened and looking for rest?
-
is God even a possibility amidst all the other things that
we might do: relax and read in a favorite chair, go to a
party, watch TV, go to a movie, sleep, play golf, exercise
-
none of those are bad, but they can only solve part of our
problems
-
Jesus says that we can find rest in him:
Come
to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give
you rest.
Coming
to Jesus is a little difficult
+
But Jesus also says that it is a little difficult and I
think that right there is the problem:
Take
my yoke upon you.
-
not a lot difficult, but a little—My
burden is light,
he says,
-
but it is
difficult
-
and I think that that
is
the problem for the Christian—we do not accept the yoke
of Jesus because it means some work—putting the yoke on
us implies work
What
is the yoke?
+
But Jesus says that that is the condition for rest
-
putting on his yoke and learning from him
-
what does that consist of?, what is the yoke?
-
accepting his guidance by knowing what he asks
-
we have to want what he wants—peace, love, no revenge,
unity, forgiveness, what we commonly call Christian virtues
-
we have to really want them, and try to make them our own
Our
problem: we are not scared enough
+
The problem may very well be that we are not scared enough
to put on that yoke
-
and maybe one of the jobs of Christianity is to scare us
-
perhaps the job of the minister is to bring back the old
idea of the possibility of us going to hell—namely, what
can happen to our souls
-
fear of what our futures will look like if we don’t place
God into them
-
convince ourselves that we really are close to hell or at
least purgatory
-
and that as a result we will run to what can help us
Reason
to fear
+
There is reason to fear hell with what is happening in our
world
-
there are many indications that we are not following God’s
law
-
many people think that the natural disasters are a sign of
God’s displeasure with us
-
I personally don’t think that, but I think of all the
disasters that we
are responsible for—the abortions, the wars, the
pornography, the blatant disregard for sexual morality, the
hatred of peoples
-
that is what scares me, and I think that it should be
enough to frighten all of us
-
and it should make us want to turn to the yoke of Jesus,
and put it on so that we can have God’s presence and
protection
Conclusion:
we need Jesus
+
We honestly need the Lord’s help
- he is our rest,
and will help us, but we have to place his yoke on us
first.
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