Reflection #104 – The 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time year

My yoke is easy…

This yoke can be used for a single ox. When it comes to our project of life we often start with our own plan and work diligently at the many intermediate tasks required to complete it. But along the way we either work too hard or not hard enough and we become exhausted or stressed by our situation.

Jesus’ compassion is revealed by acknowledging our burdens and by inviting us to “take” his yoke. The yoke pictured above can also be inverted so two oxen can share the work. This is the easy yoke of Christ where we share in his project of life, which he called the “kingdom of God”.

This yoke becomes even easier as we invert or convert our priorities to Jesus’ priorities. The chaffing and strain involved in learning the rhythm and speed of our gentle yokemate is humbling but not meant to be humiliating. The vocation by which we commit ourselves for life is not servitude but freedom. We are truly free when we are laboring with Christ to bring all things back to the home of the Father. This labor rises from and subsides into the deep rest of God.

Jesus reveals that he is yoked to God as Father. The Father reveals that Jesus is his beloved Son. The Spirit that is their yoke of unity calls Oblates to form apostolic communities that respond to people’s need for salvation. The Oblates take up this yoke as missionaries to the most abandoned, by finding the burdened, marginalized and restless and helping them to experience the rest of God that we carry in ourselves.

Fr. Mark Blom omi

Vocation Director OMI Lacombe Province.