Zecharia 9:9-10,
PS 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14,
Romans 8:9, 11-13,
Matthew 11:25-30 Full Readings
Humility
Today’s Gospel presents to us Jesus’ prayer for thanksgiving to the Father for revealing things of the Kingdom to little ones rather than the learned and the clever ones. By little ones, Jesus means the humble and therefore today's Gospel invites us to be very humble as possible.
Humility is the greatest Christian virtue which every Christian should have imitating our Lord Jesus Christ who, though was God, He humbled Himself in the form of man, came to the world, lived and ate with the poor and sinners and even accepted death, death on the cross. It was this humility that made Him to be glorified forever. Imitating Jesus’ humility will surely make us great.
Brethren, if we want to know more about things of heaven, experience God’s love and savor His sweetness, then humility is our pathway. The Lord hates the proud hearted and such people will be humbled. Jesus Himself tells us that unless we become like the little children, we shall not inherit the Kingdom of God and moreover it costs us nothing to be humble but rewards us with exaltation.
One of the main barriers to accept the love from the Heart of Christ is pride. Pride is a devil's tool to distance us from Christ. When we feel that we know everything (intellectual pride) and that we don't need any divine intervention in our lives, we put aside Jesus, and we cannot receive His love and even God will not reveal Himself to us. That is why in the Gospel Jesus thanks the Father for revealing these things to the little one not the learned and the clever. The little ones as we have seen are the humble and those who accept the fact of human limitation and need for divine intervention. So dear friends, if we have to live in God and experience His love, let us be humble and carry out burdens to Him for His yoke is light to carry.
When Jesus says His yoke is light to carry, He means that His laws are easy to follow and in the end they give life everlasting. Jesus' laws are summarised in one Law which is love. Therefore the yoke of Jesus is love and to love when we are with Jesus is very easy. Let us follow Jesus, our great teacher, love and humility and we will surely dwell in God's presence experiencing His love all of our lives.
We follow Jesus’ laws when we allow ourselves to be taught by the Holy Spirit. Being taught by the Holy Spirit means to live the life of the Spirit not life of the flesh as St Paul tells us in the second reading today. In addition to our humility, we need to live a spiritual life if we want to inherit the kingdom of God and live forever, for if we live according to the flesh, we will die, but if by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body, we will live.
As Christians, we are baptised into Christ, living his life, the life of the Spirit of Christ. This means that the Christian’s whole value-system is that of the Spirit, the reverse of the values of the ‘flesh’. ‘Flesh’ in Paul does not mean, as it often does in modern parlance, only the grosser, ‘carnal’ desires such as sex, gluttony, drunkenness. In the Letter to the Galatians 5.18-21 (and in many ways Galatians is a preliminary to Romans) the ‘works of the flesh’ includes such non-physical things as sorcery, rivalry, quarrels, malice. The concept of ‘flesh’ therefore centres on unchecked or un-schooled natural desires, self-indulgence as opposed to self-control.
To live by the law of the Spirit is therefore not to live by the Law of Moses, which merely checks external actions, nor to live by the law of the flesh, but is to live by the Spirit of Christ, from which spontaneously well up love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, trustfulness, gentleness and the other Christ-like motivations. In this sense the Law of Christ does not restrain from without but impels from within; it is an easy law to live as it flows from the love of Christ to humanity,
Reflect today on how humble you are before God and before people. Pray for a childlike faith and humility so that you will be able to inherit the kingdom of God. With all your burdens and crosses, where do you take your refugee; in Jesus or other ways? Jesus today tells us to come to Him with our labours and burdens and He will give us rest. Pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit to always direct us towards Jesus whose yoke is easy to carry.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, teach me how to walk in faith and in childlike simplicity, so that i may always enjoy the gifts of the Kingdom. Help me always to live the life of the Spirit that is pleasing to you. Amen
Blessed Sunday.
God help me to be humble always
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