Cycle A - Year I:  

15 October 2023: Twenty-eight Sunday in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Isaiah 25:6-10

Second Reading:   Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20

Gospel:  Please read  Matthew 22:1-14 

God's kingdom as a wedding feast!

Have you been invited to a wedding feast? Likely, most of us have attended such event. Our experience of a wedding feast will help to understand the message of the Gospel for this Sunday.

One of the most beautiful images of heaven in the Scriptures is the banquet and wedding celebration given by the king for his son. Jesus uses the event of a wedding feast in order for His listeners to understand better how God invites us to the heavenly home.

The Gospel story in brief: The king gave a wedding feast for his son. At first He invited selected guests but none wanted to come. The feast was ready but there were no guests. So the king ordered his servants to go and invite all those they can find in the main roads to come to the wedding feast. And so the hall was filled with guests, the "bad and the good alike".  The parable story concludes with the king finding one guest who was not properly dressed in a wedding garment. He has the guest bound and "cast him into the darkness outside."

Our Lord Jesus Christ uses the Parable of the Wedding Banquet to teach us about God's invitation for all people to be part of His Kingship. Let us reflect on this parable in the biblical context.

Recall that God sent many prophets to Israel to "invite" them to repent and come  back to the fold. But the people of Israel reject such invitation and even mistreated the messengers of God. Even in our own time, a lot of people do not welcome God's invitation of friendship, and a lot more are deaf to the Word of God.

Yet, God does not stop inviting us to His banquet. He does not stop "knocking at the door of our hearts" (Revelation 3:20). Because God gives us many chances to come. Let us open our hearts and allow Him to enter and abide in us.

But also we must heed the warning of the parable. Just because everyone is invited to the wedding it does not mean that everyone gets to stay for supper. The message of the story is clear that we have to be properly disposed for the banquet, and if we are not prepared, we will not eat of the feast.

In practical situation, we attend a wedding feast properly attired. The same is required of us to partake in the kingdom of God. We need to properly wear our garment of faith, hope and love. God is merciful but He respects our freedom. He does not force anyone to respond to His invitation, but demands of us all to follow His commandments, to give our total "yes" to Him, and to be holy as He is holy.

The proper wedding garment in this case signifies the disposition a person needs for entering the kingdom of heaven. These dispositions essentially mean responding to God's grace.

Now, the man in the parable was cast out because he remained clothed in his sin and iniquities, perhaps not realizing  that such invitation to the wedding feast would come at that moment. He was not prepared for the event but still came.

God invites each one of us to His banquet that we may share in His joy. The call to holiness is made to everyone, to become children of the Father. In the Old Testament the Jews thought they were the only ones to be saved. Not so in the New Testament. Our Lord Jesus Christ opened the gate of the kingdom to all people from all nations. But we must be ready and willing to respond to God's invitation, and we must be in the proper wedding garment, that is to say, free from the stain of sin, when we feast at the Lord's banquet table.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!