St. Bonaventure, bishop  & doctor 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Exodus 3:13-20

Moses answered God,

“If I go to the Israelites and say to them: ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ they will ask me: ‘What is his name?’ What shall I answer them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO AM. This is what you will say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM sent me to you.”  

 God then said to Moses, “You will say to the Israelites: ‘YAHWEH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me.’ That will be my name forever, and by this name they shall call upon me for all generations to come.

 Go! Call together the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abra­ham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob appeared to me and said: I have seen and taken account of how the Egyptians have treated you, and I mean to bring you out of all this oppression in Egypt and take you to the land of the Canaanites, a land flowing with milk and honey.’

 The elders of Israel will listen to you and, with them, you shall go to the palace of the king of Egypt and say to him: ‘The God of the Hebrews, Yahweh, has met with us. Now let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to Yahweh our God.’

I well know that the king of the Egyptians will not allow you to go unless he is forced to do so I will there­­fore stretch out my hand and strike Egypt in extraordinary ways, after which he will let you go.

 

Ps 105:1 & 5, 8-9, 24-25, 26-27

The Lord remembers his covenant forever.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊  

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For my yoke is good and my burden is light.”

   

Gospel Reflection：

 Heavy burdens will come to us unbidden. But we need not fear for we have Jesus to lighten the load for us. All we need to do is come to him and share our burden with him. The problem is, not all go to the Lord to unburden themselves. They look for substitutes that prove inadequate later on.

And so, this basic difficulty of approaching the Lord is what hinders us to unload. We sometimes think that we disturbed the Lord too much. That we have overstayed our welcome and it's time to look somewhere else to find relief. But if we look at the gospel today, it is not us who go to the Lord uninvited. He first of all invited us to him.

He promises refreshment for our labors. He wants to share his yoke which is easier and lighter than our own. And so, there is nothing to be ashamed of when we go to him. We have been previously invited. His door will always be open to us.