The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
What a shock for Mary! She realised that what the angel had told her was true – she really was pregnant! And not yet married! - a scandal in the Jewish society of Mary’s day, and still for many people in our day.
What do you do when you have such a heavy burden to carry? Mary went off to visit cousin Elizabeth, a safe place for her to share her fears and hopes. For us too it is often good to find a ‘safe place’ to talk through our worries and questions with a close friend, someone we can really trust.
Some thirty years later that baby had become a man, and we read today some words he spoke to the crowds who thronged around him. He offered them a ‘safe place’ to put down their burdens, inviting them to ‘come to me’. He still invites us to come to him, especially perhaps when life gets tough, and he asks us to take up his yoke – but is that adding another burden? The country people he was talking to would immediately picture a pair of oxen, yoked together, ploughing the field – not one ox doing all the work but two of them working together. And that is why Jesus’ yoke is easy, his burden is light, because he is there with us, sharing the load, not leaving us to go it alone.
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