Dear Parish Family,

If there is any part of the Gospel that sounds like a call to withdraw from involvement with the world around us, it is today's selection from Matthew. With its talk of coming as children to the meek and gentle one who will ease our burdens and refresh our spirits, it appeals to our desire to quit ‘the rat race’ and allow ourselves to be healed. Indeed, there are times in life when we need to hear those words in just that way. But when we step back and read the rest of the Gospel of Matthew, looking for ways that spell out the implications of following the meek and gentle master, we hear the invitation to life’s challenges. The first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, calls healed disciples to live a life of forgiveness, of love of enemies, and of responding to violence with creative nonviolence.
 
The image of yoke is used metaphorically to describe those things that control the lives of people. Peasants always had a yoke. To the farmer it was an essential implement. It brought efficiency and control in using animals to till the land. Figuratively the ‘yoke’ stood for the problems the farmers faced as they were not owners of the land but only tenants  who operated on the wills and whims of the landowners. Their lives as rustic folk whose subsistence means allowed them to live only from day to day were controlled also by religious leaders who imposed taxes in the name of religion and Romans who conquered them levied duties on all produce.  In the village setting, Pharisees laid the yoke of their 613 commandments upon their followers and others who sought their advice about how to please God.

Does this imagery and teaching have any relevance for us post-modern disciples? Today’s information technologies (the internet, email, Facebook, mobile phones,  tablets etc.) have made us the most informed, efficient, and communicative people ever. We now have the capability, all day, every day, of accessing world events, world news, whole libraries of information, and detailed accounts of what our families and friends are doing at any moment. One of our stand-up comedy characters recently quipped that today’s information technologies have effectively rendered a number of things obsolete, most notably phone-books, human courtesy, rest and privacy! Our lives have been radically changed by changing our expectations, and robbing us of the simple capacity to stop, shut off the machines, and rest. We are expected to be attentive all the time, respond immediately and let everyone in our ever expanding circle of acquaintances know what we are thinking or doing.
 
And so we are, daily, becoming more enslaved to and more compulsive in our use of mobile phones and the internet. For many of us it is now existentially impossible to take off a day, let alone several weeks off, and be on a genuine holiday or vacation. Rather the pressure is on us to constantly check for texts, emails, phone messages, and the like; and the expectation from our families, friends, and colleagues is precisely that we are checking these regularly.
 
But the rhythm of time as God designed it is meant to give us, regularly, weekly, some time off the wheel, some “Sabbath-time” when ordinary life, ordinary pressures, ordinary work, and ordinary expectations are bracketed and we give ourselves permission to stop, to shut things down, and to rest. Taking our attention away from the mundane and focusing on the spiritual, the One who is ‘meek and humble’ will fine tune our lives to that which is central to our innermost quest for satisfaction. With the onset of Summer keeping the Sabbath holy will sanctify our occupations and lighten our preoccupations and the wisdom to do this comes from the author of life.

  Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.