The readings for Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time may be found at:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101523.cfm
This week, the evangelist St. Matthew writes of Jesus telling another parable.
Where Jesus gives us a beautiful image
of heaven as a wedding feast and celebration given by a great king in his great hall.
Today we call it a reception, but I love the term wedding feast.
It just sounds so much more joyful and happy.
Now in this parable of the wedding feast,
God is that great King, extending invitations for people to come,
to celebrate with his son, Jesus
and his bride, the Church.
God being love itself, and God loving and wanting to save everyone.
So, God invites us to celebrate Jesus as the marriage of divinity and humanity, true God and true man and his One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
God invites us to join in the joy of this union with hope of everlasting salvation in heaven.
And how important it is that we respond to that invitation.
The good news is that all are invited.
However, not all accept it.
If we don’t respond to a wedding invitation from a friend,
there may be some bad feelings,
it could make things awkward for a little while,
but the relationship can likely recover from it.
If we don’t respond to the invitation from God,
the impact is far greater and everlasting.
In the parable, when the King’s invitation is rejected and his servants delivering the invitations are mistreated and killed,
He sends his troops to destroy those responsible and burn their city.
Those people rejected the King’s invitation, facing judgment and punishment as a result.
So will those who reject God’s invitation.
The King then casts a wider net and invites many more people, both good and bad, to attend the wedding feast.
We are those people. We have been invited to the wedding feast.
To the church, to share in the hope of everlasting life in heaven.
We are here. We accepted the invitation and that’s good.
But in this parable, Jesus tells us that just accepting the invitation is not enough.
Accepting the invitation doesn’t mean we get to stay.
Jesus tells us of the King seeing a man without the proper wedding garment which symbolizes our right to come into his great, kingly hall and to fit in.
Now this is not a fashion show.
This wedding garment is not the clothes we wear on the outside,
But rather what we wear on the inside.
And God can see it.
This is a wedding garment of charity and sanctifying grace.
Do we do more than just come to Mass?
Do we believe in Jesus and what he is telling us?
Do we reflect that belief in our actions and the way we live our lives?
When we fall short, do we go to confession,
knowing that we further compound our sins if we go to communion without having done a good examination of conscience and received absolution from a priest in the sacrament of confession?
If we haven’t been to confession recently, we don’t have the right wedding garment and we should probably do that.
Soon.
It’s uncomfortable to think about, but without it,
Jesus tells us we will be bound and thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Where we will forever be separated from God.
That’s not easy to hear, but we need to hear it. (Pause)
The King has invited us to the wedding feast.
It is so important that we have accepted his invitation and have the right wedding garment.
How we wear it will have a lot to say about whether we have what it takes to stay at the feast forever or
Whether we too will be bound and thrown out into the darkness. (Pause)
This week, as we reflect on this parable,
Let us remember that God’s invitation to the heavenly banquet is a great gift and cause for joy.
Let us pray that we respond with generosity to this gracious invitation
And ask for the strength to always be clothed in a wedding garment of charity and sanctifying grace,
Reminded always that many are invited but few are chosen and that
None of us will be taken into the eternal wedding feast against our will.
