Wednesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time at Mississippi Abbey

“Come to me.”  At a children’s Mass one Sunday the pastor asked them what Jesus meant by saying, “Come to me.”  One child raised her hand and replied, “I think it means, He loves me.”  How beautiful!  That’s exactly what he means. 

In his excellent commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis writes: “Jesus turns to us with the sweet command that every lover wants to hear from the beloved, ‘Come to me.’  He gives us this wonderful invitation, ‘Come to me.’  It is the desire of the Son to reveal the Father to us … inviting us into the bridal chamber, to a Lover-God.”1

Jesus confirms that this really is an invitation to marriage when he says, “Take my yoke upon you.”  A yoke joins two animals together to plow a field.  But the Greek word for yoke also means to join two persons together as spouses.  Jesus is inviting us to enter into a marriage bond with him, “Come to me” means that Jesus wants us to share in his divine nature, to see God and enjoy everything that makes God happy.  That’s divine happiness. St. Therese of Lisieux expresses it this way: “We are greater than the whole universe, and one day we ourselves shall have a divine existence.” 2 

We’re here this morning because of God’s desire to share his divinity and his love with us expressed in those three little words, “Come to me.”

  1. 1. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Ignatius Press, 1996, Vol. 1, p. 708f.
  2. St. Therese of Lisieux, Letters, v. 2: We are greater than the whole universe, and one day we ourselves shall have a divine existence. p. 542