The Burden of the Age
Life’s burdens come in many forms. What is a burden for one may not be a burden for another. But what is certain is that everyone either carries or has had to carry burdens in their lifetime.
Of all the possible burdens that may come to us, it is wise to consider which are the heaviest, the most debilitating, and really the most unnecessary. There is a difference between those that are essential in our lives and those holding us back from the life we were meant to live.
Essential burdens revolve around commitments and responsibilities necessary for growth, development, maturity, and our humanity in general, such as family and community demands, personal obligations, charitable outreach, care in times of illness, etc.
A story from the life of St. Jerome illustrates a kind of burden that is the opposite, that holds us back from the future that Jesus has for us.
St. Jerome had just finished decades of work on translating the Bible from Hebrew to Latin. It was around Christmas time, and Baby Jesus appeared to him and asked him what gift he would give to Him for his birthday. Jerome responded by offering Him the work he had just completed. Jesus was pleased but told Jerome He wanted more. Jerome then offered Him his life, his heart, his prayer. But each time, Baby Jesus asked for more. Finally, Jerome asked Him, “What else can I give you?” Jesus smiled and said: “Jerome, give me your sins!”
This is probably the heaviest burden people bear today: the sins, guilt, and regret of things chosen and done in their lifetimes. This can be true even of those who regularly go to Confession. We come out again, not really understanding our sins are gone. We confess like Protestants who believe only that their sins are covered over. Catholics do not believe this. We believe that once our sins are confessed, they are gone forever. God remembers them no more; even the devil can no longer access them to accuse us.
While penance and reparation are good and necessary, they are meant to strengthen us in our resolve and, in the grace of repentance, not become a new burden to carry. Jesus does not stay stuck in our sins the way we do. He does not constantly revisit them the way we do. He wills to remember them no more. They are gone. Instead, Jesus beckons us to follow Him into the future. It does us no good to stay back, clutching our forgiven sins as though they are still there. And it is even more deleterious not to confess at all. Unconfessed guilt can make us sick and so unbalanced psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually that we become incapable of building and living the kind of life that would make us and those around us happy.
The movie The Mission illustrates this dynamic well. Captain Mendoza, one of the main characters, a mercenary involved in the slave trade, kills his brother in a duel after finding him with his fiancé. His regret is so powerful that it becomes a force for his own conversion, even bringing him to the point where he joins the Jesuits as a missionary to the native peoples. His self-imposed punishment/penance is to drag a large net full of heavy armor and the tools of his mercenary life as they travel through the jungles to establish a mission among the people who live there. At times on the journey, his brothers try to free him of his burden by cutting the rope that continually drags him backward. But he doesn’t believe he is forgiven until finally, the native people he has exploited demonstrate forgiveness by cutting the rope that binds him to the past.
Rather than dragging the burden of sin into the new year, we also can be done with it once and for all. In the Confessional, the Priest who hears our Confession “in persona Christi,” in the Person of Christ, takes the sword of the Spirit and severs the sin, the regret, and the guilt of it from our lives. This causes great rejoicing in heaven and, at the same time, fills our souls with the energy, hope, and joy in which Jesus can begin fulfilling His promises in us.
1. What are some of the common burdens people carry today?
2. What do you think is meant by “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ?” Galatians 6:2
3. What might be some unnecessary burdens we place on ourselves that actually hinder us in our relationship with God and with others?
4. What are some ways we can lighten another’s load?
