Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened

Dear friends,

We don't have to look too far to see that there are so many people in our world today suffering. Every day there are countless victims of random and senseless acts of shame and hatred. Many are dying and suffering because of poverty, ignorance, famine and drought. Sadly these situations are now a feature of our world today. But in our own daily lives, each of us experiences pain, difficulty and suffering. This comes in many forms; Covid-19, ill-health, bad news from the doctor, long term unemployment, a long standing family problem and many other seemingly ordinary experiences we each have every day. There are also other kinds of burdens we face, burdens of sin, or temptation, burden of guilt, burdens of conflicting loyalties, burdens of providing for our families, this life is filled with stress, with cares, with worries, with situations that call for us to make choices that sometimes are not pleasant to make. We can often believe or assume that we can or should be able to cope on our own when we experience these or similar difficulties. This is a mistake. We don't have to cope on our own and more importantly we can't.

In our gospel this Sunday Jesus promises to be with us no matter what we are experiencing; "Come to me all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.' Jesus asks us not to pretend to be strong and self-sufficient. Jesus asks us to have the wisdom, courage and humility to reach and ask for his help.

Trusting in Jesus and turning to him in faith when we are struggling does not take away our pain magically or automatically. Jesus does not save us from our pain or human condition; Jesus saves us in and through our pain and human condition. Jesus is with us when we are struggling and experiencing difficulties. The invitation from Jesus is that we turn to him when we need help. There is a decision that we must make. Jesus is calling to you - "Come to Me." Will you go? It will require you to stop traveling on your current path and step out in a different direction towards our loving Lord.

As people who have shared with Jesus, we can also be willing to listen to the life stories of others, to share with them in their brokenness, to walk besides them in their journey and share something of ourselves and share something of Christ with them to make their burdens lighter. We are called together as the body of Christ, not as an isolated islands, but as a living working body which shares with each other, the hurts, the heartaches, the problems of life. Jesus takes our heavy burdens of brokenness from us, and replaces them with the burden of caring for someone out of love and the amazing thing is that a burden carried out of love will seem much lighter than one that is carried because of all the brokenness of this world. Jesus helps us carry our burdens, so that we can be an instrument of love to others, to help others carry their burdens so as to keep our lives and theirs moving forward.

May God bless you abundantly.