Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 10, 2025
Jesus said to the crowds:
“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.”
Reflection
Last summer, I decided to install a paver walkway at my house. How hard could it be? I ordered hundreds of paver stones and a ton of sand and substrate from the Menards website, which they dutifully delivered to my driveway. Then on the hottest day in July, I set to work.
It was complete misery. The pavers were so unwieldy that I could only carry them one at a time. I struggled to lay them straight and flush. The internet told me the project should take a few hours, but as night closed in, I had only built a few feet. I finally finished only when generous neighbors showed up with wheelbarrows, a level, and four helpful kids.
A yoke is a tool that helps you move something. A yoke is a tremendous gift if you need to lug heavy buckets of water or bricks. By distributing and organizing the weight, a yoke empowers you to move forward in ways that are unimaginable when you rely solely on your natural strength.
In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that we often make our lives so much harder than they need to be! Why lay bricks by hand when you can use a well-designed tool? Why work alone when you can be helped by loving friends?
In our moral and spiritual lives, we so often toil alone, unaided, and in despair. Maybe you agonize over a personal relationship that is not going well. You fear a project at work or school that you believe is crucial to your future. Jesus is there to lift the burden from us in two ways.
First, Jesus’ teachings are there as a tool to distribute and organize the weighty issues we must carry. Struggling with a relationship? Ask for grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Fearing a project? Turn to prayer every day for discernment. The moral teachings of the faith are divinely designed to lighten your load.
Second, Jesus himself is always at the ready to accompany you. He is humble and loving in such a way that no burden is too messy, tedious, or horrendous for him. What you might be too embarrassed or too anxious to burden other loved ones with, he welcomes you to transfer to him.
Today, take Jesus up on his offer: hand one load you are carrying over to him in prayer.
Prayer
Merciful God, hear your people who cry out to you in their sorrow and need. Console those burdened by trials and suffering. May we find our consolation and peace in Jesus your Son. We ask this in his name. Amen.
Saint of the Day
This title of Mary refers to the house in which she was born and raised, and in which the angel Gabriel visited her in the Annunciation. Tradition holds that angels miraculously transported the house from Palestine to Loreto, Italy, in the 13th century.
It is now believed that this legend came from the fact that a patron family with the name “Angelo” either had the house moved or had stones for a replica home imported from the Holy Land. The stones in the shrine in Italy match the stones of a structure that still stands in Nazareth that is believed to be another part of Mary’s home.
The history that we have for the house—legendary or factual—states that after Jesus’ ascension, the apostles had the home converted to a church. During her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 336, the Empress Helen had a large basilica built over it. At the close of the Crusades, European forces feared that the house would be destroyed, and it was moved. Miracles attended it wherever it went, and the house finally rested in Italy. A basilica encases the home once again, and the town of Loreto has grown around the shrine.
Just before opening the Second Vatican Council in 1962, Pope John XXIII made a pilgrimage to Loreto. Fifty years later, in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI made a second pilgrimage to the site to mark the anniversary of the council and to dedicate the Year of Faith to Our Lady of Loreto.
A portion of Mary’s house is kept in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica on campus, and the campus church for St. Mary’s College is named after Our Lady of Loreto. Because of the legend of the angelic flying house, Our Lady of Loreto is patron of airplane pilots and attendants, and of those serving in the Air Force. She is also patron of construction workers.
Our Lady of Loreto, who teaches us to make a home for Jesus in the world, pray for us!