Mark Dohle
Well-Known Member
Come to me
(This a good piece by my friend Fr. James Behrens.
He is a very insightful writer and I hope those who read
this will get something to pray and ponder over)
“Come to me, all you who are labored and 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.” Matthew 11, 28-30
These words of Jesus touch upon the deepest hunger of the human heart, a
hunger that is always with every one of us. It is like a hole in the
pits of our stomachs that we can never fill, no matter how hard we try.
It is the delight of advertisers, the bane of addiction counselors, and
the meal ticket of many a politician. There is that saying that the
road to life is littered with empty and broken promises. The promise
that there is something or someone in this life that can forever satisfy
human craving has lined the pockets of many a con-artist and deepened
the misery of many a lost and hungry soul.
Yet we are hungry. And we look. And we hear these words of Jesus and
wonder how to take them to heart, to that place that seeks rest.
In other translations of the above verse, the word “refreshed” appears
in place of the word “rest.” Whereas there are shades of difference
between the two words, there is a similarity in that they convey a sense
of a place of rest as being temporary. “Refreshed” seems to more
strongly suggest that sense. We feel hunger. We set aside time to
enjoy a meal and after that, our hunger gone, at least for a while – we
resume the routine of life till we grow hungry again and head back to
the table.
We are asked by Jesus to return to him again and again throughout the
course of our lives. The returning is done through the open doors of a
church, the open lives of those who are the church, the entering into
the ways and customs of life as it is lived by those different from us
and yet who know the same hunger for truth and companionship on this
road of life.
Life is a ceaseless frustration of coping with limit. We seem to have
no choice but to give God and each other fragments of time, small
portions of heart, half-hearted efforts in our attempts to reach out to
God and each other in this life. But Jesus apparently was quite aware
of the human constraints that burden life and our chronic inability to
be free of them. He lived this life. And he is here, among us, a
living and nourishing rest stop along the road of life, a place to which
and to whom we are invited to return again and again. It is a place
where we learn, little by little, to take and love the food and drink he
offers, and carry him within us till we grow hungry and need to rest
again. Someday, when there are behind us many miles, many people and
many memories, it may well dawn on us that he was at once both our
hunger and the living and only means to satisfy it.
James Stephen Behrens, O.C.S.O.
Monastery of the Holy Spirit
(This a good piece by my friend Fr. James Behrens.
He is a very insightful writer and I hope those who read
this will get something to pray and ponder over)
“Come to me, all you who are labored and 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.” Matthew 11, 28-30
These words of Jesus touch upon the deepest hunger of the human heart, a
hunger that is always with every one of us. It is like a hole in the
pits of our stomachs that we can never fill, no matter how hard we try.
It is the delight of advertisers, the bane of addiction counselors, and
the meal ticket of many a politician. There is that saying that the
road to life is littered with empty and broken promises. The promise
that there is something or someone in this life that can forever satisfy
human craving has lined the pockets of many a con-artist and deepened
the misery of many a lost and hungry soul.
Yet we are hungry. And we look. And we hear these words of Jesus and
wonder how to take them to heart, to that place that seeks rest.
In other translations of the above verse, the word “refreshed” appears
in place of the word “rest.” Whereas there are shades of difference
between the two words, there is a similarity in that they convey a sense
of a place of rest as being temporary. “Refreshed” seems to more
strongly suggest that sense. We feel hunger. We set aside time to
enjoy a meal and after that, our hunger gone, at least for a while – we
resume the routine of life till we grow hungry again and head back to
the table.
We are asked by Jesus to return to him again and again throughout the
course of our lives. The returning is done through the open doors of a
church, the open lives of those who are the church, the entering into
the ways and customs of life as it is lived by those different from us
and yet who know the same hunger for truth and companionship on this
road of life.
Life is a ceaseless frustration of coping with limit. We seem to have
no choice but to give God and each other fragments of time, small
portions of heart, half-hearted efforts in our attempts to reach out to
God and each other in this life. But Jesus apparently was quite aware
of the human constraints that burden life and our chronic inability to
be free of them. He lived this life. And he is here, among us, a
living and nourishing rest stop along the road of life, a place to which
and to whom we are invited to return again and again. It is a place
where we learn, little by little, to take and love the food and drink he
offers, and carry him within us till we grow hungry and need to rest
again. Someday, when there are behind us many miles, many people and
many memories, it may well dawn on us that he was at once both our
hunger and the living and only means to satisfy it.
James Stephen Behrens, O.C.S.O.
Monastery of the Holy Spirit