The Humble Heart of Jesus

It's been 14 months since Cardinal Robert Prevost—Father Bob from Dolton—became Pope Leo XIV. In this past year-and-a-bit, it's become possible to spot some central themes and concerns to which Pope Leo returns. He has made Pope Francis's call to synodality his own, asking all members of the Church to practice mutual listening as an instrument of communion. He has insisted on the urgent need for an "unarmed and disarming" peace. And lest we think that this call to peace is addressed only to the leaders of nations, he has tasked all of us to oppose "the globalization of powerlessness."

"Faced with injustice and innocent suffering," Pope Leo has said, "we risk becoming immobile, silent and sad, overcome by the sensation that nothing can be done." While his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas does not use the phrase "globalization of powerlessness," it repeats this core idea. We are tempted to think "that the problems are too big and that we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference" (212).

Jesus's words in today's gospel give us the start of a response to that feeling of powerlessness. He calls all of us who are burdened (perhaps exhausted by how to meet our responsibilities, perhaps weighed down by the question of whether our choices matter, perhaps overwhelmed by the news or our social media feeds). "Come to me," he says, "and I will give you rest." The Lord of all creation does not tell us that he has assembled hundreds of pages of intricate do's and do-not's. He does not invite us to learn from him because he has precisely-calibrated responses to every professional or moral quandary; he invites us to learn from him because he is "meek and humble of heart."

In Pope Francis's final encyclical, Dilexit Nos, he quoted St. Francis de Sales to reflect on the meaning of this verse. Jesus's humble heart means that "Those who would serve him acceptably must give heed not only to lofty and important matters, but to things mean and little…I mean the acts of daily forbearance, the headache, the toothache, the heavy cold; the tiresome peculiarities of a husband or wife…; the sneer of a neighbor…" (178). To serve Jesus is to follow where his humble heart leads: into the stuff of our daily lives.

This call to holiness in these everyday moments is not meant to fill us with scrupulosity about every choice we make and every interaction we have—"my yoke is easy, and my burden light!"—but to see that we can make a difference by taking up the demands of the gospel in the lives we are already living. "History is devastated by the powerful," Pope Leo has said, "but it is saved by the humble … in whom goodness shines forth and authentic humanity resists and is renewed."

Taking up specific "small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization" (Magnifica Humanitas, 213)—taking up the yoke of Jesus—may feel small or humble. It is precisely that humility that lightens the burdens of all of us who are overwhelmed and seek rest.