Fr Matthew Reese

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
—Matthew 11:28-30

Dear Friends in Christ,

When I was in my twenties and still pursuing a career as a conductor, I spent almost all of my summers at orchestra festivals. They are not low-pressure environments… Each day, you might get only twenty minutes on the podium, and the rest of the sessions you’re generally in the ensemble, frantically trying to keep up with the professional freelancers who are usually—at least in my case—much better than you. What little spare time you have, you’re studying scores.

And you feel, as the weeks drag on, the cumulative stress of the work building in your shoulders and neck. You might have some lessons in Alexander Technique to reset your posture once in awhile, but the mental pressure easily manifests itself in your body.

It’s a yoke of this world. 

I think most of us will know the feeling. The feeling of long-term, low-level stress. The kind of mental preoccupation—with our families, with our careers, with the world—that builds and builds, and seeps into the body.

Some of us will have professions where our labor itself is physical.

But Our Lord is inviting us to put down our earthly burdens. He is asking us to take the yoke of this world off from our shoulders, off from the back of our necks. He has something else for us: His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

We will not be able to extricate ourselves from every stressor of the world. But we do well to put them in context, in the context of a God who gave Himself for our redemption, who wishes for us to be in relationship with Him. Who wishes for us to cast off our earthly burdens, to take up our cross and follow.

One of the festivals I went to several summers was on the grounds of a beautiful college in New York. And when the pressures of this world seemed too much, I went into the woods, through a lychgate, and into the beautiful, leafy cemetery.

And there I stopped, and breathed, and prayed, and it was as if the yoke had lifted off. 

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew