You learn somethin' new!

Don't you just love going to Mass, and the priest gives a homily and you learn something new?! I LOVE IT! And every time I see Fr. D processing, I just know that I will get some new insight into the readings that I've never heard before. This weekend was no different... except for when he started his homily mentioning that due to some miscommunication he had prepared for the wrong readings (I'm guessing there was a last minute switch up for which priest would be preaching this weekend)...

Anyway, back to the new thing I learned. This Sunday's gospel (Matthew 11:25-30), Fr. D. focused in on the last verse: "For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." Did you know that when a yoke was made for an ox, it was made for a specific ox... as in custom made, and when that ox died the yoke was destroyed. It couldn't be used for another ox because it would injure or even cripple it because it wasn't designed for it. Fr. D went on to tell a story of a woman who had died, and was standing at the pearly gates gripping and complaining to St. Peter about how difficult her yoke was during her life and how it was really too much for her and that she should have received an easier yoke. So he showed her to a room filled with yokes and asked her to find the one that she felt she should have received instead. She walked around trying this one on and that one on, and finally settled on the one that seemed to fit her just right. St. Peter asked her if she had chosen one, and pleased with herself she motioned to the one that she wished she'd had during her time on earth... and (you know what's coming) St. Peter told her that was the very one she had worn during her life!

On the car ride home, Daddio and I were talking about this yoke... our yokes in specific, and we came to the conclusion that we shouldn't ask to have our yokes lightened but instead pray for the grace to labor under these custom yokes. God has given us what HE knows will lead us on the path of holiness (if we take up the challenge to follow Him), and we shouldn't avoid that which will make us sanctified. We should follow our Father in heaven like children, right? So stop our complaining, and be obediant!