God’s Rest

God’s rest
by Fr. Joel O. Jason

Two men were in a contest. The goal: who among them can chop the most number of wood in an hour’s time. There was a mandatory rest of two minutes after every 10 minutes. So they began chopping wood. Carlo and Frank were neck to neck in the contest, almost simultaneous in chopping. Both also took the mandatory two-minute rest.

After an hour, the pieces of wood were counted. Carlo cut more pieces of wood than Frank. Puzzled, Frank asked, “How come? We were almost simultaneous in chopping. We both took two-minute rests. What’s your secret?” Carlo replied, “Whenever I rested, I sharpened my ax.”

Whenever we hear the word rest, we think of inactivity, of doing nothing, of pigging out. Today, Jesus in the Gospel ran once more into controversy with the Pharisees over the Sabbath rest. Seen picking grains, the apostles were accused of violating the Sabbath rest. Sabbath is a day of rest for the Jews and holiness dictates that no semblance of work be done on a Sabbath.
The Sabbath took its origin from the Genesis account, “and God rested on the seventh day” (Genesis 2:2). Later on this will be codified in the Mosaic law as the third commandment, “Thou shall keep holy the Sabbath” (Exodus 20:8). But why did God rest on the seventh day? Did He grow tired? NO. Rest symbolized a day of communion between Creator and creature. After God created man and woman on the sixth day, He made hallow the seventh day, not necessarily a day of doing nothing but as a day of communion — of celebrating God’s love for man and man’s inherent connectedness with God. And that is more than simply doing nothing.

Jesus understood Sabbath not as doing nothing. Rather it means doing what needs to be done. He understood it as an intensification of one’s communion with God. Sabbath is not a day of laziness. Sabbath is a day of celebrating the God and man, man and God relationship.

Reflection Question:

How do you spend your Sunday? Your holy days of obligation? Do you look at Sunday simply as a day of pursuing meaningless and trivial pursuits?

Lord, may I always give You the worship You deserve, for the glory of Your name and for the good of Your people. Amen.

I don't know how fortunate or unfortunate i am to have waken up today.

I don't know how fortunate or unfortunate i am to have waken up today. Last night i prayed to the Lord to please take my soul and so i may rest my body.

At the center of the swirling vortex of my mind, i have found myself submitting absolutely to the will of heaven.

"Lord, i don't know if i am ready, but if You will, please take me."

It feels like living a lot more years with a lot less life.

My life has been a tale in all its clashing beauty and ugliness, and of sublimity and hellishness, the past few years i spent raging against the dying of light, taking up arms for the cause of my existence. By dint of pluck and luck, hustling and bravado, i was someone whose every pore pulsed wildly with life. I simply knew no other state than life, my existence as a living testament to the world in collisions amidst my soul going astray for the most part.

But some things are more elemental than the life itself. Where it does not trivialize, where it in fact provokes you to ponder in the most stubborn way in the deepest recesses of your own soul.
Talk about ravages of this affliction in ways that do not repel, in ways in fact that vastly reduce the entity of one that used to be so unique, so special, and so inexorable.

I could only hope and pray that i could finally offer the world the slip as i close my eyes and bid goodbye to life itself.

Life is a paradox. The hardest things to grasp are the most commonsensical ones. The hardest things to see are the most obvious ones. The hardest enemy to fight is one’s self. - Conrado de Quiros