Yokes

A yoke is defined as "a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull." The word occurs only 6 times in the New Testament and usually refers to slavery in various forms.

In Matthew, just as Jesus transforms the cross from a symbol of death to a symbol of life, so he transforms the yoke from a symbol of slavery to a symbol of freedom.

And he tells us the purpose.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

It is not an invitation it is a command, two commands: take and learn. The command to learn is "mathete". The word for disciple-"mathetes". To be a disciple is to learn and the only way to learn is to be yoked.

But a yoke holds two. So who is the second one in the yoke? It is Jesus himself. It is the Father who is guiding. It is the Father to whom he is obedient unto death. The yoke is easy and the burden is light because we are yoked to Christ. He bears the hardship, he bears the weight.

He is the Son who always follows the will of the Father. He is constantly beside us, to help us guide us. As a parent takes the hand of a child and guides them when they are learning to write, so Jesus is there to guide us.

When he turns right we should turn right. When he turns left, we should turn left. If we remain constantly yoked to Christ, we cannot go wrong. The yoke only chafes when we fight it, when we pull loose or try to pull in the opposite direction. Then the full weight of life is on us alone and it can be crushing.

How often do the scriptures speak of the obedience of Jesus to the Father?

A yoke is not a bad thing. What would be impossible for one to do alone becomes possible when two are yoked together. The Father guides the plow, keeps the furrow straight. The good son is obedient, doing the will of the father.

As Christ walked with the disciples on the road to Emaus and walking beside him they learned, so if we remain yoked beside the Son, we will learn, and he will in turn make any weight bearable. Stop when he stops, go when he goes, turn when he turns; even when the soil ahead is rocky.

Jesus is not behind us driving us. He is beside us. He is the Servant, the example, the companion.

Holy Days of Obligation

Today is one of the few Holy Days of Obligation left in the Church. They serve as a reminder to us that going to mass, worshiping God in Church with the rest of the community, is not something we do simply when we feel like. It is a duty that we owe to God and to the Church of which we are a part.

God is Lord and we are the servants, the children. The first commandment is to Love God, but if we express that love only when it is convenient, when we feel like it, what kind of love is that?Holy Days of obligation are and should be inconvenient. True love expresses itself most in the inconvenient moments of life.

And yes, it is still considered a grave sin if you simply blow off going to Church today. In the first reading today we have the story of original sin. If we look beyond the symbols of tree and fruit we see that heart of the original sin was Adam and Eve deciding that they could decide for themselves what was right or wrong. That they answered to no higher authority.

This is still our greatest temptation,to think that like petulant children,"no one can tell me what to do." In this season of advent let us be mature adults, and show the virtues of humility, obedience, and gratitude.

Acknowledge your obligation, go to mass, and give God the worship he is due.

Dealing with Santa

As Christians our lives are supposed to be different from the world around us and at this time of year the difference is clear. We jumped straight from Halloween to Christmas in the stores. No I am no suggesting the crazy extremist position.

Once more the other day I heard someone point at Xmas and say they took the Christ out of Christmas and once more I had to point out that Xmas is a perfectly Christian abbreviation since Χριστός is the Greek word for Christ.

And Rather than telling children that there simply is no Santa. Perhaps it might be helpful to explain that Claus is an abbreviation for Nicholas, and that a long long time ago St. Nicholas was a person just like you and me, and then insert the story of the real St. Nicholas the Bishop whose feast day is today.

We should be people dedicated to the truth, but it should be given with love, as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us. From an American perspective I think of a short poem by Emily Dickinson.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Blind beggars

Fridays throughout our history have been weekly days of penance, because of Good Friday; Just as every Sunday is a return to Easter.

On this first Friday of the new liturgical year, our gospel turns to an image with which we begin every mass. In only a few verses beginning at Mt 9:27 we see key concepts.

The two men in the story are blind. So many times in gospel this is how Jesus views sin. Jesus does not see people as evil but as ignorant (they know not what they do) or blind. These two blind men have one up on many of us. They know they are blind. They know they need help. They are willing to beg for it. The verb krazo literally means to scream, to cry out.

Whom do they beg? The son of the king. They call Jesus "son of David", a phrase that invokes all of that kingdom imagery.

How do they beg? The same way we do every time we celebrate mass, eleison, have mercy, have compassion. The one chant that remained in the original Greek even when mass went to Latin.

We stand before God, and acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and savior, the Christ. We acknowledge our being the blind men every time we sing.

Kyrie, eleison
Christie, eleison
Kyrie, eleison

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, have mercy

Today is a day for soul searching. Can we acknowledge our blindness? Are we willing to beg, to humble ourselves before the Lord, to cry out from the bottom of our hearts?

Then and now

As I have mentioned before, the beginning of Advent looks toward the second coming of Christ. The prophet Isaiah continues to provide us with images of what that the fullness of the kingdom will be like.

For the LORD is an eternal Rock.
He humbles those in high places,
and the lofty city he brings down;
He tumbles it to the ground,
levels it with the dust.
It is trampled underfoot by the needy,
by the footsteps of the poor.


But let us compare this to the canticle of Mary from St. Luke which is said every day in evening prayer.

He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.


Very similar imagery but with one major difference, tense. In Mary's canticle in the gospel it is all said in a past tense, technically the present perfect. He has done it! What Isaiah prophecies, Mary proclaims as done. Even before the child is born she proclaims the coming of the fullness of Kingdom of God as a fait accompli, a done deal.

We look around and we constantly see examples of injustice, abuse of power. Humble people of faith cannot seem to catch a break. But if we look at the world through the eyes of faith we know that, as Mary describes it, God has already won.

This does not mean that we should just throw up our hands and wait. We must continue to speak out, to denounce violence, injustice, and everything that threatens to rob any person of the essential dignity. But when it appears that we have failed, we should not loose hope.

The wise men brought myrrh to the baby Jesus, foreshadowing the events of Good Friday, but gold also pointing to the king, the kingdom, the victory of Easter.

Choosing to see

Growing up we used to joke about my father's selective hearing. It was factually true that between the damage done during World War II and having spent most of his life in the mill listening to the banging of looms, he had lost a good portion of his hearing. Nevertheless he did always seem to manage to hear what you didn't want him to hear.

The gospel today says,

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see

It is the same word for blessed as used in the beatitudes. Jesus says it, not to the crowd but, to his disciples in private. Is the implication that he is working private miracle that no one else can see? I don't think so. The point here is something else. Keep in mind in Luke's gospel the 70 have just returned rejoicing over all the miracles they have worked in his name.

The power of the name of Jesus has been witnessed by scores of people and yet only a few actually saw it. We all have both selective vision and selective hearing. The human brain simply cannot process every sight and sound around us all day long, and so we choose. Consciously and unconsciously we choose which things we will attend to and which things will pass by in the periphery.

The things we do actually see and hear become a part of us. They shape who we are. So we should make thoughtful choices. That doesn't mean that every moment must be filled with deep and thoughtful books. Sometimes we need to allow our minds frivolous relaxation, a little mental junk food. But we should not consume a steady diet of it.

As we pass through this day, let us notice what we notice. What are the things you choose to listen to? What are the things you choose to see? What are the things that you regularly overlook?

At the end of each day it should be true of each of us

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.

Today's Readings

The power of the spoken word

In today's gospel we have the story of the centurion whom we quote every time we celebrate mass

Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.

We apply them to ourselves and say "my soul shall be healed."

The centurion understands the power of Jesus's word because he understands the power of his own words.

And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes;
and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes;
and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

This raises an important question for us. Do we understand the power of our own words? We may not have slaves or soldiers at our command but our words are powerful. Going back to creation, the Old Testament understood the power of words as it tells us that God spoke and it came into being. John's Gospel extends this theme to Jesus, and calls him the LOGOS, the Word. The ultimate Word of God is the person Jesus Christ. The Word became flesh.

Words are understood to be like photons, little packets of power. The power of the words is proportionate to be power of the speaker. We may not think of ourselves as powerful people but we are.

Every word that comes out of our mouth carries with it that power. As parents, spouses, friends, co-workers, even when we speak to a stranger the words have power.

We can crush with a single word. Idiot. Moron. Nigger.
Or we can choose words that lift up: good, proud, thanks, please, love.

Like the word of Jesus our words too can heal or we can choose to wound. The centurion understood the power of the WORD because he understood the power of his own words

As we begin this new year, this season of advent perhaps each day we should pray Ps. 141:3

Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD, keep watch over the door of my lips!

Today's Readings