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  Thursday – 15th Week in Ordinary Time  Gospel – Matthew 11:28-30 Share the Load! Sharing a Moment We all have our burdens; we are all weighed down with cares and stress and worries for ourselves, our family, and our world.    We all trudge through long days and sleepless nights, wondering when we will find a break from the load and relief from the hardships. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us to bring our troubles to Him and He will give us rest.   Ok, sounds good.   But then He says to take on HIS yoke because His yoke is easy and light and we will find rest.   Seriously??   His yoke is easy?   Let go of my burden and take on His?   How is that gonna be any better?   Are we missing something here?   Well, of course we are! Unlike Jesus’ followers, most of us lack simple farming experience; we simply don’t realize that a yoke is meant for TWO oxen!   And that is the crux of Jesus’ words today.   The yoke is n...
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Wednesday – St. Bonaventure    Gospel – Matthew 11:25-27 Carrying the Load St. Joseph Church, Norris TN The social hall here at St. Joseph Church in Norris, TN also doubles as the overflow area for Sunday Masses.   We just set up folding chairs to handle the crowd,   And during the summer months, we do get a lot of “lake people’, visitors spending their vacation in the area.   It’s an unwritten rule that, after Mass, everyone folds up their chair and puts it away, clearing the hall in a matter of minutes.   Last Sunday, after Mass, I noticed one little boy, probably 3 or 4 years old, dutifully fold his chair and store it away.   What impressed me was that no one directed him to do it; he just went about the task like normal.   Mind you, that chair was easily a foot taller than him.   And yet he just dragged it like it was nothing.   Such a good example for all of us.   He did his share; he shouldered the burden easily and ha...
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  Tuesday – Feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha Gospel – Matthew 25: 1-13 (Readings from Common of Virgins) Stay Awake!   Be Prepared! St. Kateri   Center Chapel, Chicago   As many of you know, even though Ginger and I are now living in Tennessee, I continue to serve as the Permanent Deacon for the Native American community at the St. Kateri Center in the Archdiocese of Chicago, although on a rather limited basis (thank you, frequent flyer miles). We celebrate today the feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha.   To give you a little background. Kateri was born to an Algonquin-Mohawk tribe in upstate New York in 1656. When she was a child, smallpox hit her village; her mother, father and brother all died.    She survived but the smallpox left her partially blind, weak and her face permanently scarred and blistered the rest of her life. She often went out in public with a blanket to hide her scars.  She was adopted by her uncle and at the age of 10 the vi...
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