Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the feastday of the great Palestinian monk, the founder of a monastery not far from Bethlehem, Savva the Sanctified!

As you all know, apart from the usual daily readings from the Epistle and Gospel other reading are sometimes added in honour of the saint of the day. Today, in honour St. Savva, we heard a short, but beautiful and deeply meaningful excerpt from the Gospel. In it Christ says that one can come to knowledge of God the Father only through the Him, and then invites all of the ascetics to come to Him and find rest. Our Saviour calls us to take up His yoke, that is His teaching, and learn from him to be meek and lowly in heart. At the end of the excerpt, He notes that His yoke is easy and His burden light.

Immediately the question arises, how is it that His yoke is easy and His burden is light? Our personal experience shows that it is difficult to live a Christian life. It’s hard to keep the fasts and to pray, let alone to behave with love towards others, to live not for our own sake, but for the sake of God and our neighbours. The Saviour Himself in a different place says: “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life” (Matthew 7: 14). How should we understand this contradiction?

One could answer this question in different ways. Some, like the Holy Hierarch Luke of Crimea, say that the burden is light because Christ is close to those that carry it. Others, like the Blessed Augustine, write that at first the burden is heavy, but over time experience is obtained and it becomes light. Still others, like John Chrysostom, think that it only seems to us that the yoke is difficult and the burden heavy because of our lethargy. On the other hand, if one has the will and the determination, things will not be difficult. We can probably agree with all of these explanations.

Let me add that perhaps the preceding verse, about meekness and lowliness of heart, is a key to understanding the words about the lightness of the burden. For that person who truly learns from Christ to be meek and humble, everything should at least become easier, if not easy and light. Naturally, if someone is always striving to have everything his way, it is very difficult, nay intolerable, when things don’t go as planned. Conversely, if we do everything with meekness, if we accept everything that happens, both the good and the bad, with humility, thinking that everything happens according to God’s will and for our spiritual benefit, things become easier.

Today, let’s pray that we learn to be meek and humble from our Saviour so that His yoke and burden truly become easy and light for us.

priest Alexis