Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The speaker is joyfully sharing the Gospel message and reflecting on a passage from Matthew. They discuss the importance of personal experience and revelation in understanding God's presence in our lives. They encourage the listener to reflect on their own experiences of encountering Jesus in times of burden and distress. The speaker emphasizes the living reality of Jesus and the significance of personal encounters with Him. They express gratitude for Scripture and the moments when Jesus has revealed himself to them. Greetings, friends. What a joy to share the Gospel with you. On this Thursday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time, our Gospel comes from Matthew 11 28-30. Jesus said, Come to me, all you who labor and are 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. Reflecting on the Gospel yesterday, I shared with you some thoughts on Revelation. Specifically, I tried to point out that Revelation is the reality of God and the things of God coming to life and living in us. What I'd like to do now is to take a step further into this understanding of Revelation. Revelation as the reality of God coming to life and living in us implies the experience that is God coming to life and living in us. The Jesuit theologian, Fr. Gerald O'Collins, is very clear on this. He says, The notion of a non-experienced Revelation is an oxymoron. Outside human experience, there is no Revelation. Those waves of Revelation we spoke of yesterday are precisely the personal experience we have when encountering the living God, and when the truth concerning God is coming alive in us. Now such personal experience is contained in a concrete event, time and place. When, for instance, such and such a thing happened, I discovered God alive in me. While reading this passage, suddenly I knew in my deepest self the reality of what I was reading. Friends, I wanted to move in this direction because I would love for us to read the Gospel we just shared in this light. These exquisite three verses carrying Jesus' invitation to us must become for each of us Revelation. That is to say, they must become a living reality residing within our spirits. I am sure, as a matter of fact, that they already are for many of us, and this is exactly the importance of bringing experience to our discussion. Please take time to reflect, to call to mind the moment when Jesus' invitation became your own experience. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened. Touch again a time, a moment in your life of burden, weariness, frustration, a time when you were profoundly overwhelmed by the circumstances of life. Step further now along that memory. How did Jesus come to you in your weariness? How did He say to you at the very moment of burden, I am with you, you are not alone? Let me carry the burden with you, for you if necessary. Was it through a friend that this came to you? In a moment of prayer, maybe? While walking along one day, downcast, a sudden realization that Jesus was there with you? At Mass, or in the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Your experience has a concrete place, a specific event that holds it, gives rise to it. And now those words, and I will give you rest. Stir up the memory of the experience, yes, experience, of peace flowing over you, burden somehow lifting, even though perhaps still there in some way, joy springing up as you recognize Jesus standing there with you. One can move, you know, through the whole Gospel just like this. And one can, because Matthew is not simply sharing some past event or ideas about Jesus. These are moments meant to mediate and put us in touch with our own living experience of Jesus. Remember, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I know these words of today's Gospel are true. I do because Jesus has spoken to me personally in this very way. As I have shared with you, it was precisely in the moment, those moments really, following my arrest, moments of greatest darkness in my life, that Jesus was most brilliantly available, present to me. What is your experience of Jesus speaking to you in a time of distress? How did you encounter his consoling presence in that moment? This is the moment of revelation, the moment when Jesus reveals, unveils his saving presence and faithful friendship to you personally. My friend, grab a hold of it. Lord Jesus Christ, thank you, praise you. Thank you for this beautiful passage of Scripture. And thank you that you are living, Lord Jesus, that you speak to us today. Thank you for those moments when you have spoken to our hearts, when you have revealed your saving presence, your tender mercy, your powerful strength in our lives. Remind us of those moments, keep us aware of those experiences that indeed were moments of revelation where you showed yourself alive and present in our lives. Dear friends, what a joy, always a joy to share the Gospel with you.