Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.” 

  (Mt. 22,2-14)

Rev. Alexander Diaz

We all like to participate in a wedding feast, because we celebrate the love between two people who love each other.  Thru this feast, they manifest their compromise to God and in front of the community, this is why the closest friends and family are invited.  This Sunday, the twenty-seventh Sunday in ordinary time, we are presented with a wedding feast. But not a usual and common feast, it is a “Banquet of the Wedding” prepared by God our Lord for all the human beings at the end of times.

It is the love between the God of life and the human being, of whom God is the eternal lover.  This is about our salvation, our eternal happiness with Him forever in the Celestial Jerusalem, when God “wipe away all the tears, death will be no more, there will be no mourning, no moaning, no sadness”.

And we will live in complete and perfect happiness forever.  This is the celebration of the wedding of the Son of God with humanity.  And to this feast, we are all invited. But in Saint Matthew’s description, we see how some of them answer the invitation of the Lord and some do not, because they had more important things to do. “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come.  Some ignored the invitation, one went away to his farm, another to his business.” (Mt.22,1-14)

I ask myself ¿How many times we have done the same?  God calls us and instead of paying attention to His invitation, we turn our backs on Him.  We find a thousand excuses not to be with him, there are always multiples excuses to ignore His fantastic invitation and we pay more attention to things that are less important.  

We rather wash our hands, not be interested and make ourselves the important ones when it comes to the Lord’s business.   God offers us the opportunity to go to His Feast and have eternal happiness, to be happy forever and ¿how do we answer Him?  If we look and check ourselves deep down, we can see the importance we give to the things of the world and how we postpone, pass over the eternal things, when we do not accept the Lord’s invitation. 

¿Is is possible that the men and women of today have subsided so much to the world’s business that they consider a waste of time to think about God and His eternal life? And ¿What does the Gospel tells us about our acceptance to the invitation to the Celestial Banquet?  It is very clear, others will be invited in place of the ones that refused to assist. 

Today’s man has lost the illusion for the Kingdom of Heaven, he does not dream of being a saint, he does not think of the possibility of being with God for an eternity, he does not want to take the adventure to conquer heaven, because to him this seems like an utopia, to dream of something that does not exist, something invented, made up by ourselves.  Therefore, we prefer the passing happiness, money, wealth, power, pleasure, which is safer than to wait and participate in the eternal happiness in heaven.

St Luke, in relating the Celestial Feast, is more specific, he gives more details when the principal guests did not accept the invitation to the wedding feast, he tell us that: “then the Master of the house in a rage commanded His servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Lc.14, 22).  

These are the ones the world consider inadequate: the poor of heart - they know they have nothing if they don’t have God; the disabled, the handicapped - disabled in spirit – they know they cannot do for themselves, without the help of God; the lame - they know they need crutches that only God can provide; the blind - they know they need the light of God to be able to see. 

The wise according to the knowledge of this world, the proud, the conceited, the ones attached to the things of this world, attached to all material things,  take the risk of being invited and not assisting, they do not understand that the invitation of the Lord is infinitely more important than any other business, any other material worry, any earthly attachment. 

They take the risk, also, of not being dressed properly and being cast outside.  Not to be properly dressed means, not to have enough spiritual knowledge or preparation to be accepted in the Feast of Salvation. 

The wedding garments to which the Gospel refers to, is the sincerity and the truth of which we have to live constantly.  The invitation to the Celestial Banquet is for everybody, but many will not accept and others are not properly prepared.  Hence the sentence of Jesus at the end of the parable: “Many are invited, but few are chosen”

Remember, you are invited to the Wedding Feast, accept the invitation, because this feast will be forever, to which you are the principal guest, Jesus invites you, put on the garment of truth and authenticity.

!AMEN!