✝️ REFLECTION CAPSULE FOR THE DAY – July 15, 2021: Thursday
“Responding to the thrilling and pleasant invitation by Jesus, the King of all Hearts!”
(Based on Exo 3:13-20 and Mt 11:28-30 – Thursday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time)
Many of us would have come across the acronym “RSVP” in Invitations for marriage, baptism, birthdays, wedding anniversaries or some other social events.
RSVP stands for Répondez S’il Vous Plaît ( in French) which is translated as
Reply, If you please!
The purpose of this RSVP is that the person sending the invitation, wo¬uld like you to tell him or her, whether you accept or decline the invitation.
Today, Jesus, the King of all Hearts, presents a thrilling and a pleasant invitation…”Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden…”(Mt 11:28)
Every invitation is to contain “By Whom”, “To Whom”, “What” and a “When”
Let’s analyse these aspects in the Invitation of the Lord
1. By Whom
Jesus came into the world, primarily as a Saviour!
>> He’s in deep love with us!
“…You are precious in my eyes…and I love You!” (Is 43:4).
As a Beloved Lover, it is He who tugs at the strings of our hearts & beckons us to Himself.
2. To Whom
He extends His cordial and warmest invitation to each one of us who is weary and heavy-burdened… personally!
The Greek word for Weary is Kopiao…which means to toil & become weary to the point of exhaustion!
>> Weary could refer to the internal exhaustion caused by seeking Divine Truth through mere Human Wisdom.
>> Heavy Laden could be the external burdens caused by futile peripheral efforts & works to seek the Divinity.
Many of us certainly, reach the point of exhaustion and fatigue in our everyday works and life and in our search for salvation.
Yes, You and I, each one of us, is today, an honoured and a privileged Invitee!
“Behold, I stand at the door and Knock!” (Rev 3:20).
3. What
To rest in His Sacred Heart & to Learn from Him Gentleness and Humility.
A haughty heart robs the person of spiritual insights
>> Pride renders a person to look only to oneself…
… and the gaze on the Lord is considered meaningless.
This is where the Pharisaic Mentality went wrong.
>> They saw legalism as the vehicle to heaven.
>> They lost sight of God’s desire for the heart.
They glorified the Law of Moses, but failed to see the Glorious God of the Law!
The Kingdom belongs to the Gentle and Humble…
… and that’s what Jesus invites us to learn!
4. When
“Why delay good things in life?”
The Yoke of the Lord is easy…
… because it is HE who takes up the burden… we are only sharers in His Divine Yoke!
>> He gives us a yoke which is made to fit our needs and abilities perfectly well!
And the Time is NOW!
The Invitation is already posted and the Master is waiting!
What is our Response…
RSVP… Répondez S’il Vous Plaît
God Bless! Live Jesus!
– Fr Jijo Jose Manjackal MSFS
Bengaluru, India
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📖 Discovering the beauty of the Catholic Church through the Catechism:
JESUS AND THE LAW
>> At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus issued a solemn warning in which he presented God’s law, given on Sinai during the first covenant, in light of the grace of the New Covenant:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.
>> Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and therefore the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, was to fulfil the Law by keeping it in its all-embracing detail – according to his own words, down to “the least of these commandments”.
>> He is in fact the only one who could keep it perfectly.
>> On their own admission, the Jews were never able to observe the Law in its entirety without violating the least of its precepts.
>> This is why every year on the Day of Atonement the children of Israel ask God’s forgiveness for their transgressions of the Law.
>> The Law indeed makes up one inseparable whole, and St. James recalls, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”
>> This principle of integral observance of the Law not only in letter but in spirit was dear to the Pharisees.
>> By giving Israel this principle they had led many Jews of Jesus’ time to an extreme religious zeal.
>> This zeal, were it not to lapse into “hypocritical” casuistry, could only prepare the People for the unprecedented intervention of God through the perfect fulfilment of the Law by the only Righteous One in place of all sinners.
>> The perfect fulfilment of the Law could be the work of none but the divine legislator, born subject to the Law in the person of the Son.
>> In Jesus, the Law no longer appears engraved on tables of stone but “upon the heart” of the Servant who becomes “a covenant to the people”, because he will “faithfully bring forth justice”
>> Jesus fulfils the Law to the point of taking upon himself “the curse of the Law” incurred by those who do not “abide by the things written in the book of the Law, and do them”…
… for his death took place to redeem them “from the transgressions under the first covenant” (Cf. CCC # 577-580)
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Nelson MCBS 