The secret of how to find rest

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

PERHAPS we can get an idea about that secret from what Christ himself said. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” (Mt 11, 29) It’s when we are meek and humble, like Christ, that we can find true rest, which is to rest with and in Christ.

It’s Christ who reassures us of the effectiveness of meekness. We should simply follow what he has told us even if our initial and spontaneous reaction is to doubt whether meekness, together with humility, could help us in our effort to tackle our worldly affairs, now getting more complicated and more challenging.

We have to strongly convince ourselves that it is when we follow Christ’s words that things would just work out right even if our common sense as well as our sophisticated sciences seem to contradict them.

Christ always has the last word, and we should just try our best that our human ways of knowing conform and comply with what Christ tells us. To be sure, Christ must have given due consideration to our human estimations of what would work, like effectiveness and efficiency, profitability and popularity, convenience and comfort, etc., but he goes much further than these.

Many of us are afraid to play the role of a meek character in any situation we may find ourselves in. We often think meekness is a defeatist trait, a weakness and a clear evidence of powerlessness and helplessness.

Meekness may appear to us in our human and worldly standards as a quality for weak, defeated and poor people. Nothing of that sort actually enters into the definition of meekness as defined by Christ himself. It’s a virtue that requires nothing less than heroic strength that can take on anything in this life, no matter how it goes, including of course the worst scenario that our life can get into.

When we are meek with the meekness of Christ, we can manage to be patient, understanding, gentle, tolerant, etc., when things and times get rough and difficult. Meekness prevents us from falling into sadness, anger, bitterness, fear, shame. It prevents us from rotting in frustrations and disappointments when things don’t go our way.

Meekness will always make us hopeful and optimistic, always looking at the brighter side of life and for solutions to problems rather than getting entangled with our problems and mistakes.

Meekness enables us to be accepting of things and situations as they are, without over-reacting to whatever defects or bad elements these things and situations may have. Obviously, meekness should encourage us to do something about them. And where we cannot anymore find any human solution to some of our problems, meekness helps us to live a spirit of abandonment in the hands of God.

And the basis for all this is because in the end God takes care of everything. What we cannot do, what we cannot anymore solve, God in his infinite and merciful wisdom and providence can always do something for our own good.

That’s why we really need to strengthen our faith that fuels our hope as we continue to get on with our life here on earth, and sharpen our charity that in the end is what is truly essential to us. We are made for love, for charity, since that is the essence of God and we are supposed to be his image and likeness.

This is how we can find true rest, our rest with and in Christ!

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com