“See, your king shall come to you;

a just savior is he,

meek, and riding on an ass,

on a colt, the foal of an ass.”

“‘Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am meek and humble of heart;

and you will find rest for yourselves. 

For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.’”

In comparison to the religious leaders of his day, who seemed more focused on their own status and making life more difficult for the people, Jesus is focused on freedom: freeing people from burdens, freeing them from illness, freeing them from evil, freeing them from sin, freeing them from isolation, and freeing them from death. He does not impose upon us an ever more strict and difficult set of rules, but proposes a new path, a new way, to trust in the Lord with all our hearts. Now, it is all encompassing. We must lose our life to find it. We must take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. We must forgive our brothers and sisters from our heart. It is, however, neither a path that is unknown (Jesus does not ask of us anything that he hasn’t already done) nor a path we travel alone (Jesus is with us always, even to the end of the age). The result, regardless of circumstances and our weakness, is a true interior freedom. We are embraced in the love of God. We are not required to be what we are not, but freed to be who we most truly are.

Religious idolatry, setting up religious actions, rules, beliefs, or practices in the place of our hearts that can only truly be filled by God, always leads to enslavement of our spirit. Religion becomes our god. Our hearts are entrapped by harshly judging ourselves and others. We are burdened by not living up to expectations. We can become haughty, cynical, fake, or duplicitous. Our behaviors and attitudes can drive others away from God’s mercy, grace, and love. In some cases, our idol proves so burdensome that we altogether give up on faith ourselves. Like all sin, religious idolatry takes us further than we really want to go, keeps us longer than we really want to stay, and costs us more than we really want to pay. Wrapped in sheep’s clothing, religious idolatry is a wolf waiting to consume. I remember once saying that I was the worst of sinners. That wasn’t because it is what I truly believed, but because it is what I though I was supposed to say if I wanted others to think I was holy. How cowardly! How false! How insidious is religious idolatry. It is opposite of Jesus’s yoke and burden. It is another chain on our souls. 

The truth will set you free. It starts with an unvarnished and unstripped honesty about who we are, all of our goodness and weakness. It is an awareness and utter acceptance of who we are and who we are not. It is to know, in our deepest parts, that we are loved unconditionally, without condition of our worthiness. We are not God, but God loves us. We are made in his love, in the image of love. This is humility. St. Teresa of Avila once said, “…humility is the truth.” To place our trust, our faith, in Jesus, sets us free. Jesus is humble of heart. He is humility in person. Jesus is truth in person and the truth will set you free. Take his yoke upon you, for Jesus is meek and humble of heart.