"Jesus said to the crowds, 'Come to me, all you who labored and are burdened… For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.'"

Matthew 11:28-30

It seems like such a boldface lie for Jesus to tell us that life would be a cakewalk if only we would fasten, bind and unite ourselves to him. Ask a martyr how easy it was to follow Christ in this life. How about a parent forgiving someone who has abused or taken the life of their child? What about denying ourselves jumping into some pool of pleasure that everyone else seems to be jumping into? There is the thing about taking up your cross each day and following Christ regardless the suffering or cost. So, how can Jesus say that yoking ourselves to him could be light and easy? Being a Christian is anything but easy and without burden.

Talking with a friend, I asked him why he thought so many people left the Catholic Church. He said, "It’s too hard." No doubt there is a lot cost, demand, challenge to facing and embracing our suffering and letting Jesus heal, bless and straighten out us through it all. Instead of running as far away from it as we can, Jesus tells us to charge right into the middle of it knowing God will provide. This is the teaching the church has constantly upheld for us since the time of Christ.

But where is the ease and lightness in all the difficulties we face? St Paul, after his conversion, teaches how that it is no longer he who lives but it is Christ living in him. He is living from Christ! How powerful, redemptive, healing and eternal is that?

Christ living in you and me! How will we come to all the forgiving and understanding and rising from the dead we long for if not for Christ? It is Christ living in us that makes it all possible. If Christ, who provides all the forgiveness and understanding and resurrection in the world, is living in us then surely that kind of power can make it easy and light for us in the worst of difficulties.

What is burdening you, what is not easy? Christ bids us, "Come to me. You do not face this on your own power, with your own resources. That person has died. Now it is I living through you. I face it for you with my infinite power for life and love and good. I give you ease and lightness. That is what I give when a believer lets me live in them- ease and lightness."

It is Christ living in you,

+Fr. John

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