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Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. What type of rest? The Lord then adds If you shoulder my yoke, what is his yoke? His yoke is the cross, and if we bear it with humility and gentleness, not arrogance and harshness, then our souls will find rest. Note that our Lord bids us to come to him when we are fed up and cannot cope, which is another notion for overburdened. We come to him and learn from him whose heart is gentle. And when we finally encounter him, for some daudle, in the reproach being distracted with worldly placebos to solve problems, then we are obliged to share his yoke. What is a yoke as such? Well, a hundred years ago before machinery, when the agrarian farm lifestyle warranted that bullocks and horses worked the land, plough, the soil, yokes were common equipment hanging up in most sheds. They were made of wood and leather, and joined the animals together at the neck and shoulder. The yoke in a certain sense locked or harnessed one animal to another, so they could work as a team. If the stronger beast turned right, so did the other. If it stopped, then both stopped. So when we cannot cope, the broken relationship is too much, the addiction is too embracing, the debts are too high, we come to the Lord, and we yoke ourselves to him. He does not promise to take away the burden, but he does promise to help us bear it, to be supported by Him. This yoking process involves three steps. One, in being yoked to Him, He leads us and we follow. Hence the reference to humility. two once our heart is next to His in the yoked fashion, complied with His will, we receive His support or grace, and thus we become more gentle with others. three, the outcome of His strength and presence gives rest to our souls, not always our bodies, but what was overly burdensome becomes lighter and easier. It sounds good a perfect recipe to solve those ugly issues. But does it work? As always the proof is in the pudding. One classic example is noted in the life of Saint Maria Garetti. We recall that she was born in eighteen ninety, the third of seven children. His father had just died, and the family was starving, and thus were taken in as workers on a farm. The owner of the farm had a son called Alessandro, we'll call him Alex, who was filled with lust for young Maria, and when she was not willing to be complying with his immoral demands, he broke into a violent rage and stabbed her fourteen times. Although the family managed to transport her to the hospital, her life could not be saved. Before dying, whilst receiving the last rites, she forgave Alex for his crime and prayed that he might be saved. He was sentenced to thirty years in jail for murder. During the first seven years he was filled with hate, anger, violent conduct, and wanted nothing whatsoever to do with God. In short, he was fed up and overburdened. Maria, now in heaven, appeared in a dream or vision, rebuked him for his behavior, imploring him to seek God's forgiveness so that he could go to heaven. After that mystical encounter, he did convert to the Lord, went to confession, and took on the yoke of his prison sentence. By God's grace he became more gentle of heart and a model prisoner. Within this context, we note that Maria's mother, Assumpta, which is Italian for assumption, was truly burdened after her daughter's death. Let's just think of the plight she was in for one moment. She had no husband, no centering, no government support, no families close by, abject poverty, and tried to feed her family, her children by manual farm work. Now her older daughter had just been murdered by the employer's son. What an enormous burden she was asked to bear. I'm convinced that she came to Jesus, who helped her bear this burden by sharing the yoke. I know that must have happened because her heart was just so gentle and humble, having learned from the Lord over the years. You see, I say that because once Alex had done his time, the first thing he did after being released from jail was to find out where the Goretti family had moved. He wanted to ask the mother for forgiveness. Now imagine the scene, it's winter, perhaps dark at night, and Alex comes knocking at the door of the house. The mother assumta didn't have to open the door. She wasn't obliged to speak to this man. She could have just spoken to him through the door or crack on the door, but no, no, she invites him in, she listens to him, she accepts his apology, and then they talk. They eat together with a humble and gentle heart. And even more so it's Christmas time. So they go to midnight mass together and kneel side by side at the altar rails. Murderer and mother, both united by the Prince of Peace. Eventually Maria would be canonized in 1950 with a Sunta presence in the family. It was the largest canonization ceremony in the history of the world up to that stage, and the first time when a parent was present when their child was being canonized. Some say Alex may have been in the crowd, he may have attended. At any rate, what we do know is that he became a lay brother in a monastery for the rest of his life, where he died in nineteen seventy, being at rest in his soul, having shouldered Christ's yoke for so many years.