The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 9, 2023

Matthew 11, 25–30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.  Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

“At that time Jesus exclaimed.”  The context for this Gospel Reading is that the Lord is speaking after he has warned various cities he has visited that  they will be condemned at the end of the world because they have not repented despite his preaching and miracles.  He even compares them to Sodom, upon which God poured fire and brimstone for its sins.  Following this, the Lord praises his Father for revealing his mysteries to “little ones” while withholding them from “the wise and the learned”, by which he first of all meant the Pharisees.  But the Father does not hold his truth back from anyone: he simply accepts its rejection by those who nourish a high opinion of themselves.  These “little ones” of whom he speaks are the ordinary people, illiterate and not schooled in the intricacies of the Law so that they are dependent on the scribes and Pharisees to know what it means.  They follow Jesus when they hear his voice and his clear message of salvation because he loves them.

“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.”  The Son praises the Father for revealing his mysteries to “the little ones” while those great in their own estimation reject them.  The Father reveals these through his Son, and the Son delights in doing the Father’s work, and zealously performs it.  “Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.”  That is, it is no accident of fate or alteration of the Father’s will to reveal these mysteries to the little ones after the great ones had rejected him: it is his purpose, for God’s glory is made more manifest through the little and the poor than through the wise, the powerful, and the rich, just as an artist shows the greatness of his skill through the use of poorer brushes, canvasses, and paints than if he had used the best that money could buy.

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”  Following his short prayer of praise to the Father, the Son speaks of his relationship with him.  These verses remind us very strongly of the language Jesus employs in doing this as recorded in the Gospel of St. John.  The Lord does not employ and figures of speech or memorable images to teach about this relationship.  Rather, he speaks about it very plainly.  He begins by teaching that the Father has handed “all things” over to him.  After his Resurrection he will say something similar: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28, 18).  In this way the Son explains that he is equal to the Father. “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”  Here, Jesus speaks of himself explicitly as the Son of the Father.  Having established his equality with the Father, he goes on to teach that knowledge of the Son comes only through the grace provided by the Father, and that true knowledge of the Father comes through the Son.  The first part of the verse brings to mind words that the Lord spoke after feeding the crowd of five thousand: “No man can come to me, unless the Father, who has sent me, draw him” (John 6, 44).  The second part reminds us of John 14, 6: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  The Father draws us to the Son through love of our Savior, which leads to faith; and the Son reveals God as Father to us.  At the end of time, it is the Son who calls the righteous into heaven to be in his Father’s Kingdom: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25, 34).

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  These next verses also seem apart from what went before and may have been spoken by the Lord at another time, possibly after the Apostles returned from their first mission, but Matthew, recalling the words, did not recall the circumstances and place them here.  He is speaking this to “the little ones” of whom he spoke above, so it could be that Jesus has returned to this theme.  Those who labor and are burdened are those who strive to do God’s will in their lives in the face of opposition and temptation.  The “rest” Jesus promises that he himself will give is spiritual refreshment here, and eternal rest with him in heaven.  “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”  The “yoke” of Jesus is his Cross, but the Lord does not give it to us to carry alone, for he Carrie’s it with us.  The fact that he takes up his Cross for our sake proves beyond any doubt that he is “meek and humble of heart”, and through his Cross we can be made thus too.  We “learn” from Jesus through reading the Gospels and through prayer.  We learn about him in the Gospels but we know him through prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament or the crucifix.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” His Cross — doing the will of the Father — is “easy” because he gives us both the example and the grace we need to do this.  His burden — the suffering we undergo in carrying his yoke — is “light” because of the reward he sets before us.