Where to find our true rest

CHRIST himself said it very clearly that it is in him where we can find our true rest. These are his words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11,28)

To be sure, the rest that Christ gives us is not only physical. It is the rest that includes all the aspects of our life—emotional, psychological, mental, moral and spiritual. We need to broaden our understanding of rest to go beyond the physical dimension.

Christ offers us the due rest for our soul that can be harassed by the problems of this world and the requirements of our lifelong pursuit for holiness and apostolate. (cfr. Mt 11,29) This is the real rest that is indeed meant for us. Short of this, our rest would be at best only apparent, and cannot cope with the over-all demands and pressures of our life.

For this he advises us to learn from him, particularly in his meekness and humility. I imagine that these virtues were highlighted because they are the ones that would open the gates of our soul to receive God’s grace, to be guided by faith rather than simply by our senses and emotions and even by our intellectual powers.

We have to see to it that our search for rest should not get stuck in the level of our physical, emotional and intellectual conditions. This is a crucial point because the entry point in our process of knowing is through our senses, instincts and emotions, before things get processed by our intellect.

And things do not just end there in our intellect. We have to see to it that our intellect, which does not create the truth but can only recognize and express it, be enlightened and inspired by the ultimate source of truth, which is our faith.

Faith is a God-given view of the all the truths that we need to know. It is God revealing and sharing his knowledge of things with us. It is God sharing his powers with us. We just should not be guided by our own lights and faculties, but by the light God gives us through the gift of faith.

To be sure, our faith is not just an intellectual affair, limited to the world of ideas. It involves our whole person and requires that our correspondence to it should precisely involve our whole person.

In other words, our life of faith should actually be an actual encounter with Christ who is the fullness of God’s revelation to us. And this is always possible and not just a fairytale, because on the part of God, he already has given us everything that would make his presence and provident action on us effective in our whole life.

We really have to exercise our faith that in turn would require of us to be meek and humble as Christ has advised us clearly. For without meekness and humility, we would consider all this talk about faith as enabling us to have an actual contact with Christ as pure hogwash.

If we truly have actual contact with Christ, and more than that, if we follow him and identify ourselves with him, then there is nothing in the world and in our life that we cannot handle. Christ can take on anything, and we with him can also do the same.

That is why Christ reassured his disciples that his yoke is easy and his burden light. (cfr. Mt 11,30) We should not be afraid and anxious about anything. Christ has resolved everything for us. And we also can as long as we identify ourselves with him. That is why Christ gives us the real rest meant for us.