Using the acrostic “CHRIST,” let me share the different roles of Jesus in providing us the rest He promises in our key verse. 

Comforter: Jesus soothes our worries and anxieties, providing a sense of peace that surpasses all understanding.

Healer: He restores our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, mending our brokenness and bringing wholeness.

Redeemer: He frees us from the bondage of sin and guilt, offering forgiveness and lifting our burdens.

Intercessor: He advocates on our behalf before God, ensuring our prayers and needs are answered, giving us rest in His care. 

Savior: He saves us from the consequences of our sins, granting us eternal life and a secure place in His Kingdom.

Teacher: He guides us with His wisdom and truth, illuminating our paths and helping us navigate life’s challenges with clarity and purpose. 

Dean Pax Lapid (paxlapid@it-spac.com) 

reflect

In your busyness, what roles does Jesus play in your life?

Jesus, help me find profound rest in Your promises. Help me find solace, healing, and guidance in Your presence. Give me rest that’s not merely physical but a deep, spiritual renewal that rejuvenates my soul and strengthens my faith.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

First Reading | Deuteronomy 7:6-11

It is God who chooses us first. His grace is His initiative in our lives—we never make the first move. Grace always works first, enabling us to embrace His will and grow in discipleship and service to His Kingdom. Salvation is entirely the work and initiative of God. Though we recognize our need for it, we are powerless to bring it about on our own.

⁶ Moses said to the people: “You are a people sacred to the Lord, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own. ⁷ It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. ⁸ It was because the Lord loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he had sworn to your fathers, that he brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed you from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. ⁹ Understand, then, that the Lord, your God, is God indeed, the faithful God who keeps his merciful covenant down to the thousandth generation toward those who love him and keep his commandments, ¹⁰ but who repays with destruction the person who hates him; he does not dally with such a one, but makes him personally pay for it. ¹¹ You shall therefore carefully observe the commandments, the statutes and the decrees which I enjoin on you today.”

Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10

R: The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him.

¹ Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. ² Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. (R) ³ He pardons all your iniquities, he heals all your ills. ⁴ He redeems your life from destruction, he crowns you with kindness and compassion. (R) ⁸ Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. ¹⁰ Not according to our sins does he deal with us, nor does he requite us according to our crimes. (R)

Second Reading | 1 John 4:7-16

We celebrate love when we contemplate the heart of Jesus, broken open for us on the cross. May we recognize God’s boundless love as we gaze upon His cross in meditation. Jesus’ death is not the final word—the Father raises Him from the dead. Through divine love, suffering and death are transformed into redemption. O Cross, where is your victory now?

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. ¹⁰ In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. ¹³ This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. ¹⁶ We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.   

Gospel | Matthew 11:25-30

Jesus does not intend for us to live burdened by hardship and difficulty. It is sin that brings suffering into our lives. Yet, because we have a Savior, we never face these struggles alone—Jesus is always there to support us. Let us trust in His promise to carry our burdens when they become too heavy to bear.

Gospel Acclamation

Take my yoke upon you, says the Lord; and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

²⁵ At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. ²⁶ Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. ²⁷ All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

Read the Bible in one year! Read 1 KING  21 - 22 today.

Deep Within

Intimus, the root of the word “intimate,” is an interesting concept. It is the superlative of intus (within) and therefore means “innermost,” or deep within.

Intimacy is what today’s Gospel passage reminds me of. The first two verses are a prayer directed to the Father. The middle verse is a description of the kind of relationship that exists between Jesus and the Father. The last two verses are lovingly addressed to the people He loves and cares for (you and me and the rest of the world), giving us most reassuring and consoling words.

Being in the afternoon or evening of my life, I need all the reassurance and consolation I can get because I tend to worry a lot. I never was a worrywart, but almost everything that currently happens in the world and in the country is nothing short of worrisome, even depressing.

But today’s passage convicts me to realize that it is not so much reassurance and consolation that I need, as the God behind the consolation that I seek. I am shamed to realize furthermore that my fears and worries might be less on account of what happens, but more on account of what—or more properly, Who—I am sorely missing.

The first two verses are what I ought to focus on. I need to put out into the deep. The Lord does lament the fact that divine wisdom did not affect the wise and the learned, but touched the childlike and the lowly. Despite all this, He praised and acknowledged His Father’s gracious will.

It was a prayer from deep within. He was as intimate with the Father as the superlative intimus can get. He pierced the depths and found the wisdom that He can now share with you and me. “Come to Me and I will give you rest.” 

Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB 

reflection questions

How intimate are you with the Father? How might you develop a more intimate relationship with Him?

I need Your consolation, Lord; more, I need You—the Lord of my consolation. Amen.

Today, I pray for: _________________________________