The "rest benches"

Thursday February 17, 2022

The “rest benches”

“Come to me, all you who are weary and bent down with a burden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11.28

We find in the Bas-Rhin, along certain country roads, benches with a characteristic silhouette: the "rest benches". These are sandstone benches whose vertical uprights are extended and support at head height a second horizontal bench intended to receive the baskets that the peasant women carried on their heads when they went to the market or from one village to another. The first were installed on the initiative of the prefect Adrien de Lezay Marnésia on the occasion of the baptism of the "King of Rome", the son of Napoleon 1st, in 1811. The peasant women could thus unload their burden without having to bend down .

We too can carry heavy burdens : family worries, health problems, professional tensions, various addictions, guilt... Jesus invites us to come to him and unburden ourselves of our burdens. He who is gentle and humble of heart wants to free us from all that oppresses us and especially from our sin. But it is up to us to come to him, to recognize that we need to be released, and to place all our trust in his love. On the Cross he took on all our faults and all our sufferings in order to expiate them. By realizing it, we can find true rest in it.

Bernard Grebille

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Proposed reading : Psalm 62, verses 1 to 9.

62.1 To the conductor, according to Jeduthun. Psalm of David.

62.2 Yes, it is in God that my soul trusts ; from him comes my salvation.

62.3 Yes, he is my rock and my salvation, my fortress : I will hardly be shaken.

62.4 How long will you throw yourself on a man to try to knock him down like a leaning wall, like a falling fence ?

62.5 They conspire to bring him down from his high post; they delight in lying. They bless with their mouth, and they curse in their heart. - Pause

62.6 Yes, my soul, rely on God, for it is from him that my hope comes.

62.7 Yes, he is my rock and my salvation, my fortress : I will not be shaken.

62.8 On God rest my salvation and my glory ; the rock of my strength, my refuge, is in God.

62.9 At all times, peoples, trust in him, pour out your heart before him ! God is our refuge.

Source (Live Today)