for July 16
Thursday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah is traditionally called a prayer of deliverance, possibly from deliberately unspecified enemies. The people are told that their way will be smooth and their path level if they look for the Lord’s way and the Lord’s judgments or expectations, if they desire as we should too the name of the Lord and the Lord’s title, likely the Just One. Yearning for the Lord during the night and keeping vigil probably suggests a problematic situation, but then at dawn after that night the judgment of the Lord brings justice upon the earth. The result is that the Lord grants peace and reminds the people and us that the Lord is ultimately responsible for all that they have accomplished.

In the second half of the passage the tone changes as the people are in anguish and oppressed by what they understand as their punishment. They are described as like a woman about to give birth writhing in pain, which would be acceptable because of the desired result, but in this case giving birth to nothing but wind, a symbol of their helplessness. We cannot achieve our salvation, people cannot bring it about on their own, a reminder that as before only the Lord can accomplish that.

Then, however, comes the positive conclusion. The dead shall live, at least spiritually or psychologically, with at least an inference to a future life after death, not yet a common belief at the time. So the people are told to awake and sing as dew from above brings light and the land gives birth. The psalm refrain is thus appropriate as it asserts “from heaven the Lord looks down on the earth.”

The gospel is a brief but well-known passage. Jesus is inviting the crowds, not just the disciples, to come to him because they labor and are burdened, which could certainly be a reference to the excessively strict interpretation of the Mosaic Law somewhat prevalent back then, though it might also apply to their sinfulness. Jesus tells the people to take his yoke upon themselves, the yoke being the harness to which animals like oxen were attached for pulling their load. Taking his yoke invites them to learn from him, most likely an allusion to the Book of Sirach where we read, “submit your neck to wisdom’s yoke, that your mind may accept her teaching.”

Jesus is inviting us to a lifelong openness to learning to be what he describes as meek and humble of heart. We not only have the example Jesus gave us while on earth but also our belief in the incarnation itself, Jesus humbling himself as the divine became human. Jesus offers us rest, needed relief from our burdens. Jesus also tells us that the yoke is easy (yet there is one) and the burden light (yet there is such). There are indeed responsibilities we are expected to carry out, like love of God and neighbor, but Jesus is there to help us perform them.
—Edward O’Donnell SJ

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.