14th Sunday Ordinary Time July 9, 2023

Readings: Zechariah 9.9-10, Romans 8.9, 11-13, Mathew 11.25-30

Looking around him at the people who are following him, Jesus recognizes in them a hustling activity and business, a burdensome application, that is, he can see, ultimately fruitless. They are busy pursuing goals, busy enacting projects, busy developing schemes, working hard, always scurrying around doing things, but somehow those things never seem to produce satisfactory fruit, never allow the people to say ‘Great, done, finished, sorted’ because there is always another project, another scheme, another activity to be taken up. 

 Seeing us harassed and distracted the Lord responds with great compassion: ‘Come, come to me’ he says, ‘enough of all this fruitless business, all this frantic activity, come to me, and coming close to me you will find rest’. Doesn’t this sound rather wonderful? And the rest that Jesus offers in today’s Gospel is not simply a pause in the daily grind: it is a step taken out of the reality of daily business into another reality, another way of being.

 Just as he takes his disciples away from time to time to a lonely place to simply be with him, he invites us all to come to him and rest in him, rest with him, rest in his presence. The rest Christ summons us to, the rest in his presence, is meant to draw us into a deeper knowledge and understanding and appreciation of who we are, of where we are, of what we are, and of the world

This weekend we will have our Mission preacher Fr. Mike Merizzi Please support the mission work of his congregation.

Fr. Terry