Home Daily Meditation Matthew 11,25-30

Matthew 11,25-30

by Fr. Michael Della Penna
Matthew 11 25–30

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11,25-30

At that time Jesus exclaimed, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Humble. Meeked. Crucified

1 Today Jesus describes his heart using two adjectives, each of which are poorly translated from the Greek.  The word for humble, tapenos, literally means lowly, or close to the ground.  Translated into Latin as humility, the root word humus retains the meaning of dust or earth and reminds us of our origins when as dust, God breathe into us his divine breath of life.  This reveals the truth that without God, we are nothing but dust. It also speaks of our littleness before God.  St Francis calles water humble because it always sought the lowest place.  We also recall CS Lewis’s definition of humility as not thinking less of ourselves but thinking of ourselves less.  We therefore have a God who is lowly and focused on loving us. 

2 Jesus also describes his heart using the word praus, which is translated meek.  While this is a good translation it is the connotation which has been distorted Meekness often conveys weakness. This was entirely the opposite case for the Greeks. In fact meekness was a military term used to describe how war horses were selected. Wild horses were corralled in from the mountains and separated into different categories such as horses to be used for racing, for pulling carts or for their use in war. Only the most fierce and strong horses were selected to be meeked. This was a process in which their strength and power were harnessed so that they could be used during battle. They were trained to submit to their riders slightest nudges during extreme circumstances.  Only those horses who were able to have the discipline to submit their authority to their riders during war were fit for battle. This means that our Lord has a heart in which his strength is harnessed for God the father.  On the cross our omnipotent Lord who could have destroyed all of his enemies instead was obedient to the father and submitted his power and strength to be used by the will of God.

3 Finally our Lord‘s heart was crucified.  This ultimate test proves the Eucharistic heart of God is a model of self sacrifice which teaches us that we always have the freedom and the capacity to choose to love no matter the circumstance. 

Today let us choose to be loving and allow our strength to be used by God so that we might through our sacrifices always choose to be lowly and to love.

May God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

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