Come to Me All You Who Are Burdened

And I will Give You Rest 

Sermon by Fr. Joseph Mungai, FMH*

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 9, 2017

St. John the Apostle Awasi Catholic Church, Kisumu Archdiocese, Kenya

Most people that we know are carrying heavy

burdens these days. Anxieties and fears  about our economy, the cost of food and fuel, home values and mortgages, what’s happening to our children, terrorism, our national debt -- these all  beset us. The list seems overwhelming and endless. People are trying to stretch their pay checks, but they never seem to go quite far enough. There are couples working on their marriages, and they fear they are breaking up. They’re unemployed or they’re under-employed and searching for a better job that will provide a reliable and adequate source of income.

Others -- filled with fear that they may have cancer -- are waiting for biopsy reports on abnormal cells that are growing in their bodies. Or they’re trying to provide for and shape the characters of their children, children that are so influenced by all that is immoral and degrading in our culture. Many parents feel they are taken for granted.

All of us are laboring under burdens. In addition to the few things I’ve just mentioned, many folks have piled on to themselves burdens of self­-doubt, self-blame, shame and guilt. Then they say to themselves: “The predicaments I’m in are my fault.” “If I were a better wife, my husband would notice me more and be more sensitive, considerate and loving toward me.” “If I tried harder, I would have a better job or position where I work, and we wouldn’t be so strapped for money.” “If I were more loving, my teenagers wouldn’t be so hostile.” And on and on it goes, with those internal put-me-down tapes constantly playing in our minds.

Laboring under many burdens, we have come here today to Mass and we’ve just heard Jesus say to us: “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give

you rest.” (Matt. 11:28) How could anyone not be drawn to Jesus? Why is He  ignored by so many? 

For some, the Christian message has been so distorted that they no longer take it seriously. Some preachers have claimed that faith in Christ removes all desire for sin. Rubbish! 

Others have preached a message that faith in Jesus Christ removes all doubt and fear in one’s life. Nonsense! Still others tell us that with Christ you’ll have such a feeling of acceptance that you’ll never ever feel lonely again. Not true! And, we’ve been told that if you believe in Jesus Christ your children will grow up good, you’ll get promotions where you work, and that your illnesses and sicknesses will be minor. Bunk!

The Christian faith is not magic. Christ’s life was not painless and totally free of burdens. Quite the contrary! But what He does offer you is His invitation to be yoked with Him, to pull your burdens and tasks through life with Him, sharing His yoke, drawing on His strength, and letting Him help you while you help Him accomplish His tasks. Christ doesn’t do things for you; He does things with you.

The Jews among whom Jesus lived were suffering a lot. Life imposed heavy and painful burdens upon them. Their religious leaders imposed even more, presenting them with an impossible set of laws, rules and regulations that could never be met while at the same time presenting them with an angry and vengeful God who could seemingly never be satisfied. Jesus, a Jew, had burdens, many burdens. But His religion was never a burden. It was a support; it carried Him; His relationship with His Father empowered Him, filling Him with God’s Holy Spirit. He knew that His Father was a gentle, caring, and generous Father who loved with a love infinitely greater than any human love.

I don’t know what your image of God is, and I don’t know how you feel about God, but I do know that you need to be yoked with Jesus in accomplishing God’s work and in carrying out His tasks. If you give up your tyrannical deity, Jesus will give you His wise and loving Father along with His strong and understanding mother. He wants to be yoked with you.

In our Gospel this weekend (Mat 11:25-30), not only does Jesus offer us rest in our weariness, he also invites us to “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me … For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” According to Miriam

Yoked Together 

Webster’s Dictionary, a yoke is a wooden bar or frame by which two animals are joined at the neck or head for working together. This suggests to me that Jesus will work with us to help us carry our burdens. I find this thought very comforting.

For those of us who are weighed down with shame and guilt, well that is a heavy load to carry. Jesus’ mission in life was a mission of forgiveness. Are you yoked with Christ in that

task? Christ never met anyone whose sins

were so great that they couldn’t be forgiven. The only thing Jesus could not forgive was an unforgiving spirit… or a spirit that simply doesn’t care.

It is often said that Jesus’ love for us was unconditional. Well, yes…. but not quite. He did attach one supreme condition on His love for us, namely that in order to receive His

forgiveness and be relieved of our burden we have to forgive others. We have burdens removed from our backs as we forgive and remove burdens from others.

No one has a heavier load to carry than those who are resentful and constantly concerned about themselves. Resentfulness is, after all, a form of self-centeredness. And Jesus, as you will recall, spent no time at all with such things. Jesus was far too concerned with helping others than He was with fretting about His own problems. He didn’t waste time with His own self-pity parties.

If we take Christ’s yoke upon ourselves we will find our own burdens to be much lighter. For all of us are carrying some heavy loads, the worst of which are our feelings about ourselves and about our relationships with others, particularly those that closest around us. Life is, after all, essentially hard, because relationships are hard.

But Jesus offers you something that can make life essentially beautiful for you and for me. “Come to me,” He cries, “all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give

you rest. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. And your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Everything depends upon how close you will let Jesus come to you.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

*Fr. Joe Mungai, FMH, is a Franciscan Missionary of Hope, a relatively new congregation started in Nairobi, Kenya in 1993. He was ordained June 7, 2014. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

Losing is Finding. Giving is Receiving. Dying is Living

Sermon by Fr. Joseph Mungai

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 2, 2017

St. John the Apostle Awasi Catholic Church, Kisumu Archdiocese, Kenya

A lady lost her handbag in the busy shopping

mall. Fortunately, an honest little boy found it and promptly returned it to her. The lady was truly delighted and quickly examined her bag. She was astonished. “Hmm! What happened here? I know there was a $100 bill in it. Now there are ten $10 bills.” The boy quickly replied, “That’s right, ma’am! I learned the lesson. The last time I found a lady’s bag, I didn’t receive any reward. She didn’t have any loose change.”

People work best when they know there is reward. Employees work harder when there is raise in salary and benefits. The most wanted fugitive can be captured in no time when a large amount of reward is offered. Hence, preachers of the Prosperity Gospel effectively attract followers by constantly harping on the Gospel passage: “Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap” (Lk 6:38).

Certainly, God is not some stingy benefactor. As St. Paul assured the Romans, “He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” (Rom 8:32).

He always offers reward to every good deed. That’s for sure. Jesus himself said so: “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

But we are surely missing the point when we do something good solely for reward. On his desk in the Oval Office, President Reagan kept a small plaque with the words: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.”

As St. Francis of Assisi pointed out in his Prayer of Peace, “It is in giving that we receive; it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Giving and doing something good, no matter how insignificant it may be, even a cup of cold water, is in itself our reward, for, as we always say, “God can never be outdone in generosity.”

Nevertheless, Jesus gives an important caveat: a reward comes at a great cost. The Gospel this Sunday, therefore, lays down the most fundamental condition for discipleship: giving up everything and carrying our cross for sake of Christ and the Gospel.

A catechist was teaching her five and six-year old children about the 10 Commandments. After she finished explaining to them the commandment to ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ she asked, ‘How about your brothers and sisters? What is the commandment that teaches you how to treat them?’ Quickly, one little boy quipped, ‘Thou shall not kill!’

Honoring and loving our earthly parents, our brothers and sisters, and our loved ones is truly laudable, and it is, in fact, commanded by God. Yet, no matter how important it is, it cannot override the greatest commandment of all, that is, to “love the Lord, your God, with

all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37-38). Everything else takes the backseat: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37).

Interestingly, when we love God first and foremost in our life, our earthly loves are purified and enriched. The reason is simple: by loving God, the limits and obstacles brought about by our selfishness are surmounted, enabling our heart to expand and love all the more. Far from being downgraded, our earthly loves are fully enhanced and further dignified when the love of God takes precedence and supreme priority in our life.

Hence, losing is finding: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:39). Giving is receiving: “Give and gifts will be given to you.” (Lk 6:38); “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Dying is living: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24).

St. Teresa of Calcutta hit the nail on the head when she said, “When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.” That is precisely how the dynamics of divine economics works. God’s graces unceasingly flow in abundance. Thus, holding on to

something makes us incapable of receiving more. Letting go, frees us from worldly attachments, and enables us to receive more. Carl Jung puts it this way, “Don’t hold on to someone who’s leaving, otherwise you won’t meet the one who’s coming.”

I believe everybody wants to follow Christ. Most certainly because of the promise of eternal reward in His heavenly kingdom. Yet, many of us cannot do so because of our attachment to creatures. 

There is nothing wrong with creatures. What is wrong is attachment to them. It is like holding on to grass while falling down the cliff. All these are just creatures, limited and ephemeral. We hold on, rather, to the Creator, the source of everything. Letting go of a pail of water in order to prime the pump and have more abundant supply of water is truly wise. 

Let me close with a quotation for an unknown author: “There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Corpus Christi: God Became Flesh in Order to Be Man's Eternal Food

On June 18, 2017, Catholics in the United States will celebrate Corpus Christi Sunday; but today, Thursday, June 15, we celebrate it here in Austria with Mass and Eucharistic Procession.

by Lawrence Fox 

It was Sunday morning in Centennial Colorado; late spring as I remember. It rained the night before and the air and soil were damp even though the sun was fully exposed. Nature was slurping the wet soil and bathing in sunlight. 

Sunday morning in the Fox household is one of hectic preparation so as to make Mass on time at St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church. Afterwards, we usually went to Sunday brunch, read or watched a movie. Sunday is a day of feasting.

While waiting for others to get ready, I glanced out the main large window in the front of the house. I noticed a flutter of movements in the branches and leaves of the white birch trees planted in our front yard. 

That morning the whiteness of the bark stood out vividly against the green leaves. I went outside to observe the commotion more closely. Swallows and wrens were frantically hopping from branch to branch in search of  nature’s generosity. It became apparent to me that the birch tree was functioning as a dynamic bird feeder. 

I moved several of the green leaves and there were -- to my chagrin -- tiny green aphids slowly digesting the underbelly of the tree’s tender leaves. Theirs was a short feast since  an army of lady bugs crawled up and down

thin branches onto the leaves where they ate the aphids. The small birds were aware of my presence but they were indifferent because they had mouths to feed. They were scooping up lady bugs, soaring away to their nests and bringing masticated groceries to their young.

I turned my focus to the ground and I saw how far the root system of the tree extended in all directions. I thought, “An integral part of nature is consumption.”

The tree was taking water from the soil, carbon dioxide from the air, and UV energy from the sun, converting it into cellulose and oxygen. The living tree was feeding upon the

non-living earth, and then offering its own life in return to little mobile sensing creatures, which were in return being consumed by other insects. These were being gobbled up by sensing birds able to move rapidly. 

The tree was not aware of these activities on any sensible level. The insects seemed oblivious of their own impending doom. The birds were aware of the insects and my presence. I was aware of the whole event both subjectively and objectively. 

I say subjectively since I was aware of my own emotions observing such consumption. And I was objectively aware that the various activities in the tree existed apart from me. With the help of my senses, I assembled images of what was taking place which were stored for later reflection. 

My momentary observation of the cosmos was interrupted by a voice in the house, “It is time to go!” 

The Roman Catholic Mass is ordered so that each person’s inner conversation moves from

Pope Francis offers Holy Mass 

external distractions towards the worship of God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- the Source of All Being.

The summit of Catholic worship, the celebration of the Mass, is a time of feasting on God’s Spoken and Incarnate Word. During the liturgy of the Eucharist, the Catholic communicant hears the priest say, “Body of Christ.” He responds “Amen,” meaning “I believe.” He receives the offered host. The communicant then hears “Blood of Christ,” and responds “Amen.” He drinks from

Lawrence Fox receives Communion
 in the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy, i.e. Mass

the chalice. 

When I heard those words that day, I recognized something about the humility of God and His great passion for created man, whom He made male and female. 

Created nature both feeds and consumes itself. God the Creator feeds nature and He is consumed Himself by a small part of that created nature. Man feeds upon created nature for physical life and feeds upon the Source of All Being for the sake of eternal life. 

God became flesh in order to be man’s eternal food. Both the cosmos and the Eucharist are instituted by God. In both, the essence of each thing is real and not symbolic.