One of Chicago’s favorite tourist spots is the famous Cloud Gate public sculpture in Millennium Park (Anish Kapoor: 2006). Its highly polished surface mirrors faces young and old, bodies skinny and fat, couples holding hands and kids mugging for an unseen camera. All around this large sculpture you hear the languages of the earth and see the world’s map in human form.
In terms of today’s gospel, don’t we all learn lessons from kids like those mugging before the giant mirror of that Millennium Park “Bean”? The trick as we grow older is to maintain the openness and vulnerability that is so typical of young people of any age. It is this kind of deeper wisdom that helps us stay resilient before God. Resilient people live with open hands and hearts; they can change and adapt, stay sensitive and alert to the deep-down needs of heart and spirit.
When we become weary and find life a bit burdensome, Jesus invites us to be resilient and to learn from him, to take up his yoke, to know that we are loved. Amidst the messiness of our lives our souls do find rest. And, as we are able to put more of our lives into God’s hands, the yoke of the Lord becomes easier and his burden light through all the dyings and risings of our lives.
—The Jesuit Prayer Team