A Reflection for Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:28-30)
Find today’s readings here.
Here is a picture that has stayed with me since I first encountered it a few weeks ago:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is sitting on the edge of a pool in an old-fashioned bathing suit. He is not wearing his glasses and, more strikingly, you can see his bare legs, which are emaciated from the effects of polio. But he still wears his trademark smile, wide and beaming. For most of his political career, F.D.R. hid his condition from the cameras. But not in this photo. For a moment at least, his burden was light.
Where are the places in your life where you seek rest?
For Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that place was Warm Springs, Ga. Named for its warm natural waters, Warm Springs became a destination in the early 20th century for polio patients looking for a form of hydrotherapy. F.D.R. traveled there for several weeks every year, and helped establish a rehabilitation facility for polio patients. He loved to swim in the local waters, and he loved the community he found there.
I visited Warm Springs this spring on a reporting trip. You can still tour the grounds of the rehab facility, which was modeled after the University of Virginia. On its bucolic green lawn patients would gather every day for physical therapy. It was here, on what they called the walking court, where many patients learned to walk again, often with the help of crutches and braces.
Warm Springs was a place where people who bore great physical burdens came together. And with the help of the waters and the staff and lots of therapy, their burdens were lightened. Today, the white marble columns positioned around the Warm Springs quad bear plaques donated by former patients. One reads: “Where Life Began Again.” Another says: “I walked again, 1953.”
This is the promise Jesus offers us today: of a new life, with him, where we can find rest.
But here is what he is not offering us: a life without pain or burdens.
This is a thorny truth that F.D.R. knew well. Life was never the same after polio; it was a burden he would carry to his grave. But he—and many others—found in Warm Springs a place of rest and refreshment.
Where are the places in your life where you seek rest? I can think of a few. But here is what we are challenged to consider today:
True rest comes not from a place, but a person.
