Living Our Faith

For they preach but they do not practice. Matthew 23:3b

Jesus is critical of the religious leaders of his time because their teaching, their interpretation of the Jewish Law, is unnecessarily burdensome for people. “They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.” In contrast, Jesus had said earlier in Matthew’s gospel, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” Jesus’ work consisted in lifting unnecessary burdens from people’s shoulders rather than laying such burdens on people’s shoulders.

Most of us have to deal with burdens of one kind or another as we go through life. Some burdens are necessary and unavoidable: they are the burdens of love, the burdens that come to us from giving ourselves to others in one way or another. Jesus is critical of those who impose unnecessary burdens on others. We can all be guilty of doing that from time to time.

Rather than imposing unnecessary burdens on others, our calling is to help carry each other’s burdens, to make life less burdensome for each other. In doing that we will be acting in the spirit of the one who said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” The Lord helps us all to carry our burdens, both the necessary and inevitable ones and the unnecessary ones. As St  Paul knew from personal experience, Christ is strength in our weakness, and in times of weakness we can turn to him for strength.

Blessings,
Deacon Jack

St. Clare of Assisi

Houston, TX