In the Gospel this week, how beautiful Jesus words are, and yet so hard to trust.
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.
What a great comfort these promises are. There is a place to go to when death or loss or suffering descend upon us.
Another very honest viewpoint is given by Dylan Thomas, the poet, who was in no way wiser than Jesus, but nevertheless deserves to be heard. He wrote this to his dying father:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.*
Rage is quite different from the ease that Jesus promises. And in his great poem, “Fern Hill,” the same poet says,
Oh as I was young and easy
in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Dylan Thomas was a raggedy man, who, if rumor is true, drank himself to the death he dreaded. He loved his youth and sang glad song to it, but death always stood waiting, and it did not offer relief to the chains it wrapped around him.
What about Jesus? He said that his yoke was easy yet he went through torture and death. How can this be?
Here is an approach. Maybe labor and burdens are not meant to be erased from our lives, not erased or thrown away, but instead are meant to be pathways to a solid ground far underneath our troubles, into a quiet grounding that is real stillness and rest. What rich earth would that be?
Jesus says it is meekness and humility of heart.
In the desert he had already told the devil that the only food he needed was “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Maybe the only real goods in life are those rooted in the love that is God and in the meekness and humility that are Jesus’ life.
“Watch me,” Jesus says. “I am meek, and
riding on an ass, on a colt, the
foal of an ass (First Reading). Or in other words,
Watch me on the sad height of Calvary and see. I have let it all go—belongings, beloveds, reputation, everything. One thing remains. In it I find my rest. Make it your life, whatever your sorrow, whatever act of living and dying and being burdened you have, and it will not be heavy. Make it the center of your life and your burden will be light too.
Love.
Love of God and neighbor.
If you can begin to let go into the arms of the Great Love, if you can give your life away instead of raging, you will know rest from your burdens. You will see how death is the ultimate act of giving yourself away, as Jesus did in the midst of his burdens. Meek and humble of heart, he is, not proud and above it all.
Take your troubles and hand them gratefully to the One who can give you rest.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
