July 5, 2026

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A

Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

A few years ago I heard about a movement to change our national anthem from our current “The Star Spangled Banner” to another song, such as “God Bless America.” The reason cited was that our national anthem is so hard to sing. Now there is someting to be said in favor of this, since mistakes in both lyrics and pitch have been made by many singers, including professionals, resulting in epic failures. The song has some very antiquated words and a very large range – seventeen semitones, whatever that means. However, let me make a case for the “The Star Spangled Banner.” As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence this weekend, I think the United States deserves a song that is as difficult to sing as it was difficult to make our country into what it is today. In a time where it is all about convenience and ease, let's take a minute to remember the hard work that was put into making our country great – it's laws, it's infrastructure, it's freedoms. And I think we do ourselves and our descendants a disservice by resting now and assuming that we can take it easy and not continue the hard work to maintain them. They are not permanent. They can and will slip away if we don't protect and fortify them.

So too I think that one could misread today's Gospel and decide that Jesus is saying that we can be at ease about how we live out our faith. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” [Matthew 11:30 NABRE] comes from today's Gospel, but Jesus also said, in the same Gosple of Matthew just five chapters later, a Gospel passage that we will hear at the end of August, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. ... For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct” [Matthew 16:24, 27]. So if we beleive in the truth of both statements – and we do as Christians since we are not allowed to pick and choose and still call ourselves Christians – how do we reconcile them?

The clue here is to focus on the word “yoke.” A yoke is a device that puts two animals together in such a way as to pull a load. But it is always two animals – it doesn't work with just one. And it doesn't work if one of the animals doesn't pull its part – if one animal becomes lame, the other can't pull it alone. So who is in the yoke with us that Christ refers? It is Christ himself. He's with us, pulling with us, helping us. But he doesn't deny that there is a burden to bear. He doesn't say that his lounge chair is light. He doesn't promise us a La-Z-Boy ride through life. No, instead he tells us that if we get into the yoke with him, if we pull our load in making the Kingdom of Heaven that he teaches, he will be there, helping us, making the burden lighter, making it in fact joyful.

Doctor Arthur C. Brooks is a Harvard professor who studies happiness and teaches it to classes at the Harvard Business School. His research has determined that there are four pillars to building a happier life. They are: family, friends, work, and faith [Building What Matters, Portfolio/Penguin, 2023, p. 95]. Jesus, and therefore the Catholic Church, has a lot to say about all of these things, but the reference to the yoke brings into perspective the work part of this. And why does Doctor Brooks say that work makes us happy? He quotes a Lebanese poet by the name of Kahlil Gibran, who said work should be, at its best, “love made visible” [Ibid, p. 151]. And we all instinctively know this: when we do something out of love, it isn't burdensome at all, or at least is not a drudgery. In fact, Doctor Brooks says that we cannot be happy if we don't work. If we don't accomplish something that is of real value, we won't get a sense of accomplishment that is vital to happiness. If done out of a sense of love, work – whether in a career, at home, at school, at church, wherever – provides us that necessary feeling that we have done something a value for our family, for our friends, and for God, the other three pillars. On our deathbeds, we don't take pride in all the work we got out of, but instead take stock in the true value we provided to the world.

So today, I think Christ is teaching us that his call to carry our cross is not a call to drudgery but instead a call to work with him to lovingly create the Kingdom of God here on earth, which he promises us will not be burdensome but instead be rewarding. If our lives seem to be filled with drudgery, Jesus is asking us: why? If our work is done for other reasons than love, it often turns into drudgery. Or sometimes it is done out of love but at the expense of the other three pillars of God, family, and friends. So many people spend too much time working to get stuff for others that they don't really want – after the necessities, what they really want is a relationship with you. So if today we find that our yoke is not light, we are asked to examine why that is, and to ask ourselves if it is the cross that Jesus asks us to bear or is it a cross of our own making that is causing us to be unhappy. At the end of the day, the Church teaches that Jesus promises us a joyful life – not an easy one, not one that is without pain or suffering, but one that, if lived correctly, will be one filled with joy.

As we continue with our Mass, may the Eucharist that we receive nourish us for the work we do for love of others. May God continue to bless our country on this special milestone. When Abraham Lincoln was asked if God was on the union's side during the Civil War, he said: “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side, my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right” [ https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/abraham_lincoln_388944 ]. May we always work towards building a country that is on God's side, yoked with Christ, yoked with our fellow countrymen, to do the hard but satisfying work of building a better, fairer, more just and Christian country to leave to our children. In future years, we will look back at our work and not remember the sweat and toil but instead take satisfaction that we did right by God.