The Rest Hidden From the Wise

Young child crouching beside a window and looking toward the camera in a black-and-white photograph.

Young child crouching beside a window and looking toward the camera in a black-and-white photograph.

Only if we become simple and little can we truly find rest for our lives.
— Julián Carrón
Julián Carrón. The Rest Hidden from the Wise

Julián Carrón - In this homily Julián Carrón asks how anyone can rejoice amid the chaos of ordinary life—and why the rest Christ promises is hidden from the wise and revealed to the little ones.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem!” I don’t know how that line landed on each of you when you heard it—whether you registered what it actually means. So often, the moment we hear something like this, we want to say: “But how am I supposed to rejoice in the middle of the chaos I’m in, in the middle of the difficulties, in the middle of everything on my mind?” How can anyone rejoice? In life—not in the hyperuranion—in ordinary, everyday life, where we are mired in so many things that shape how we perceive reality, our very way of living.

The prophet Zechariah says: “Behold, your king comes to you.” This call to rejoice, addressed to the “daughter of Zion,” does not rest on her performance, on her ability to climb out of the nightmare, to free herself from everything that troubles her. “Behold, your king comes to you. He is righteous and victorious, humble; he rides on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” It is the power that comes from another that lets us rejoice.

In the Gospel, Jesus brings us to the very heart of the question: how can what the prophet Zechariah says become our own? He himself—it always strikes me to hear this Gospel—marvels at the plan of God, his Father, to the point of praising him: “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise.”

How is it possible? The Mystery, the Father, has hidden it “from the wise and the learned” and revealed it “to the little ones.” Because what He offers the wise is too small! Too little to stake a whole life on. And so we pay Him no attention. We, the learned and the wise, figure that staking everything on something so small can’t be right—it’s not what wise people do, not what intelligent people do, people who take account of all the factors of life.

So who takes it in? Who lets himself be changed? Only the little ones! Only simple people, who open themselves to something else, something different from what the wise imagine—the wise, who think they already know it all. Good heavens! Jesus says: “Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Everything has been handed over to me by my Father.” This is why only He can bring us into the mystery of life, because “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

In these two seemingly enigmatic sentences, He is telling us what the mystery of living is: one—Jesus, who became flesh—is the one who reveals to us that the mystery of life is what He Himself lives, His relationship with the Father. Because “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

How fortunate we are that He has been given to us! He has revealed it to us! We are here listening to Him, and He reveals it to us again today, whatever situation we find ourselves in: “Come to me.” In case we have not grasped what this relationship He speaks of means: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened” by all the heaviness of living, by all your worries, by all the things that crowd your days, “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened [by such a heavy life], and I will give you rest.”

But, as so often happens, we are so “wise” that we think: “Life can’t be this simple! There’s no way I find rest by opening myself to this relationship.” For most people these words come to nothing. Who really believes that someone who opens himself—as He does—to a relationship with the Father can find rest? Unless we have lived them, these words are empty: “Well, they’re beautiful words, good intentions on Jesus’ part… He was Jesus—what else was He going to say? But we poor souls can’t lean on this!” And in fact they get no hold on us, because, having never experienced this rest, we take them for words painted on a wall!

Only the simple, the little ones, can understand them, because they are the ones who—having left the door open to let this light in—perceive that rest in their experience. How true it is that letting His Presence in, the way the little ones and the simple do, refreshes life! “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find [once again] rest for your lives. [For] my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

How many times have we heard this! But how many times, when we are weighed down, do we come back to these words? Who lives by letting Him in like this, who lives lightened of all the weights that so often make life unbearable? We leave not the slightest room for these words to take flesh in us. Because we are too wise, too learned. This method of God is too little for the learned and the wise; it can’t give rest. And we who are wise, deep down, do not believe it.

Instead, in His constant effort, in His never giving up knocking at our door and telling us, “Look, this is for your own good!”, He has given us the Spirit, as we heard in the second reading: “You are not under the dominion of the flesh,” under the dominion of this carnal way of thinking—too human, that only suffocates and gives you no rest. You are under the dominion of the Spirit, because “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” You who are so wise and learned—do you not realize that “if the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in you,” the One who had that power will give life to you as well, “will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” This is why “brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh”; rather, it is through the Spirit that we can live: “Through the Spirit […] you will live.”

Let us ask the Lord to give us the Spirit who opens our heart, who dismantles our wisdom, and who knocks constantly at our stubbornness, so that we may live. Only if we become simple, little, can we truly find rest for our lives.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A - Notes from the homily by Fr. Julián Carrón - July 5, 2026

(First Reading: Zech 9:9–10; Psalm 144 (145); Second Reading: Rom 8:9, 11–13; Gospel: Matt 11:25–30)

Julián Carrón

Julián Carrón, born in 1950 in Spain, is a Catholic priest and theologian. Ordained in 1975, he obtained a degree in Theology from Comillas Pontifical University. Carrón has held professorships at prestigious institutions, including the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. In 2004, he moved to Milan at the request of Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation. Following Giussani's death in 2005, Carrón became President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a position he held until 2021. Known for his work on Gospel historicity, Carrón has published extensively and participated in Church synods, meeting with both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

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