28th. Sunday of Year (A)
(Isaiah
25:6-10; St. Paul to the Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew
22:1-14)
Today we are celebrating God’s
infinite goodness to us in Jesus Christ His Son, Our Lord, and also His yearly
generosity to us in the harvest. There
is a close connection between these two aspects of God's love for us, because,
in the course of Mass the celebrant says:
Blessed are You, Lord God of all creation, for through
Your goodness we have received the bread we offer You, fruit of the earth and
work of human hands: it will become for us the bread of life.
Similarly, when offering the wine he
says:
Blessed are You, Lord God of all creation, for through
Your goodness we have received the wine we offer You, fruit of the vine and work
of human hands: it will become our spiritual drink.
In that way we are led to recognize
that not only is the whole of God’s creation good, but also that, because of its
natural goodness, the whole of God’s creation can become a channel for our
supernatural sanctification and ultimately -- most mysteriously -- share with us
in a glorious restoration.
Creation
itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of
the glory of the children of God.
(Romans 8:21)
Understanding this relationship
between natural good and supernatural blessing, we are in a position to
appreciate Isaiah's words:
On this
mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and
choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
We recognize that such an earthly,
natural, picture can well imply an infinitely more splendid, joyous and
fulfilling, occasion: a banquet of heavenly consequence at which divine life and
eternal beatitude is celebrated. This
Isaiah foresaw indeed, because after those words describing an earthly feast, he
immediately went on to speak of the spiritual blessings of heavenly life, where
suffering and death have no part:
On this
mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples… On this mountain He
will destroy the veil that veils all peoples … He will destroy death
forever. The Lord God will wipe away the
tears from every face; the reproach of His people He will remove from the whole
earth…. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this
mountain.
On this
mountain, recalls those high places
which ancient peoples used to climb in order to approach the Most High God as
closely as they physically could, and where -- being able to see and admire the
wonder of His creation all the more -- they might all the better worship
Him.
On this
mountain relates most closely to
Mount Sinai, where God revealed something of His glory and majesty, and gave
Moses and the People of Israel the Law of election, blessing, and
guidance.
Again, on
this mountain embraces Mount Zion where Solomon built a Temple to
Israel’s God -- using materials sedulously prepared for that purpose by his
father David, a man ‘after God’s heart’ (Acts 13:22) -- and where, on the
occasion of its dedication, he prayed:
May Your eyes
watch night and day over this temple, the place where You have decreed You shall
be honoured; may You heed the prayer which I, Your servant, offer in this
place. Listen to the petitions of Your
servant and of Your people Israel which they offer in this place. Listen from
Your heavenly dwelling and grant pardon.
(1 Kings 8:29s.)
Ultimately, on
this mountain signified for the Jews of Jesus’ time the Temple in
Jerusalem, rebuilt by Herod from the former, very modest, ‘second temple’ with
such munificence and splendour as to make it renowned throughout the Roman world
and be the pride and glory of the Jewish people, despite their hatred of Herod
himself; indeed, it should have become the very centre of the nations (Ezekiel 5:5),
from where the God-given treasure of the Law, committed to the custody of
Israel, would have been proclaimed and transmitted to all mankind.
Today we do not ascend mountains nor
even climb hills in order to approach God's heavenly dwelling, neither do we
turn our eyes to any material Temple; no, we come to Jesus in Mother Church,
which is the Body of Christ, vivified, guided, and protected to the end of time
by the Holy Spirit of Father and Son; and there we lift up our eyes to heaven,
just as Jesus did in prayer to His Father, joining our prayer to that which He
now, in heaven, continually offers to His Father on our behalf.
In Mother Church then, the ‘Body of
Christ’:
(God)
will destroy death for ever and wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the reproach
of His people He will remove from the whole earth,
for all those, that is, who seek to
find in her just how great is His goodness and how sweet His saving grace.
Today, very many people have little
or no trust in God: indeed, in our Western world, many find themselves either so
cossetted in their well-being or so full of cares and concerns about their
well-being, that they have no conception of ‘salvation’; the world gives them
all they can get and apparently holds all that they could want, with the result
that they cannot see any need to pray to some imagined God. Others, however, can’t quite shrug-off God
altogether, and so they cautiously excuse themselves from giving Him any time or
attention by saying they are so busy they just don’t have time for prayer; they
would like to have, but in fact can’t find, time for God.
And that is, indeed, the situation
painted by Our Lord in the parable we heard about the wedding feast and those
invited to it. The Father had prepared
this banquet for His Son and the guests ignored the invitation given them. The Father sent a further, yet more urgent,
request for their presence at the banquet: some of those invited, however,
contented themselves with mocking the messengers as they went about more
important matters purportedly needing their immediate attention, while others --
not a few -- went so far as to beat and even to kill those who brought the
invitation.
There we can possibly recognize
ancient Israel in the Promised Land, flirting with the gods of surrounding
peoples and failing to understand the exclusive majesty of the Lord their God Who had brought them out of
Egypt, through the desert, and into their Promised Land; then came the prophets
-- brave and faithful all of them, and some even glorious – who were, for the
most part, mocked and progressively ill-treated until some were killed for the
Saviour-to-come Who would fulfil in His own Body their testimony and crown with
His own Blood God’s goodness and patience.
In the Gospel parable there were
some, the poor and the needy, the good and the bad, who were almost forced by
circumstances to come to the banquet; it did not matter who or what they were or
from where they came, for God -- as St. Paul and then St. Augustine would most
emphatically declare – had not been searching for, or requiring, any foregoing
merit on their part, all that mattered was their bearing and behaviour in the
banqueting hall.
There, we are told that the King
Himself came round to see His guests:
When the king
came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding
garment. He said to him, ‘My friend, how
is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to
silence. Then the King said to his
attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited but few are
chosen.
What is that so absolutely necessary
“wedding garment”? St. Paul tells us
when, in his letter to the Romans, he says:
Put on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts.
(Romans 13:14)
How could anyone, however, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, commit
themselves to Him, without first recognizing and acknowledging Him as the Son
sent by God His Father? In the parable,
it would seem that the ‘friend without a wedding garment’ had managed to come
to, get into, the wedding feast without even bothering about -- let alone
recognizing and reverencing -- Him for Whom the feast was being held, and such
dishonour to the Son redounded to even greater offense being given to the
manifest presence of the great King himself.
Here we can recognize the chief
priest and elders of the people, who had secured prominence for themselves
as chosen ones in the Chosen People, and were now unable and/or unwilling to
recognize Jesus as Son of the very God they claimed to worship, serve, and
proclaim so faithfully:
It is My
Father Who honours Me, of Whom you say that He is your God. He
who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father Who sent
Him. (John 8:54; 5:23)
Today, in our society, a like drama
is being unwittingly prepared: our worldly well-being will end; for what -- but
a short while ago -- seemed to be mere flies-in-the-ointment have begun to
fester in many parts of the globe, and the bubbles may soon be bursting in our
own neighbourhoods, indeed in our very faces.
Why? Because neither godless
rationalism nor military might can resist, let alone master, the forces of
destruction -- let loose by disbelief in God -- rampant in the world
today:
Whatever is
born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world -- our faith. Who is the one who
overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
(1 John 5:4-5)
There is nothing in this world,
neither power nor money, neither science nor technology, and most certainly not
man’s moral pretensions, that can preserve us from the evil inclinations of the
human heart and the weakness inherent to the human spirit. God alone, in and through Jesus Christ,
saves – by His Holy Spirit -- those who have faith in Jesus.
The rich and the prosperous refused
the wedding invitation in the Gospel passage, and likewise, you will not find
those in Church who, in whatever way, promote pride by seeking fame and renown,
and cultivating power and influence.
Because, such people want to remain and proclaim their own selves, and
ever further their own prospects, whereas we in Mother Church are called, on the
contrary, to learn this one supreme
lesson -- as you heard and know well -- to put on Christ.
Our parable speaks of only one
hypocrite being found in the wedding hall because it is the King, the Father Himself, Who instantly
recognizes and discloses the one basic sin of all those called and rejected: failure to recognize and believe in His
beloved Son. That one supreme
sin is the total cause and supreme expression of our vulnerability to Satan and
alienation from God; and our Gospel message today is for all those members of
Mother Church who, being truly humble and contrite, want indeed to put on Christ
and sincerely endeavour -- by His Spirit -- to leave behind their own weak and
sinful selves for His sake.
People of God, as our tables are
once again covered with the fruits of this year’s harvest we cannot fail to
recognize that God’s creation is both bountiful and beautiful, and that is a
source of great joy for us. However, we
must not allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in the beauty and desirability of
this earthly banquet as to ignore the invitation that comes along with it to
that other eternal banquet celebrating an eternal harvest. The God Who makes us so pleased with this
world’s good things, can He not prepare even greater joys for us in His heavenly
kingdom? Of course He can. Let us, therefore, take up His
invitation.
God's call is, as we have said,
non-judgmental, embracing all alike, be they previously bad or previously good
according to the world’s estimation; He is both supremely generous in His help
-- giving us His own Son and Holy Spirit -- and patient, as He awaits our
faltering response to His repeated and glorious promises. However, decisions must finally be made
because judgment will eventually come, and for that we must prepare ourselves,
since we do not believe in an impotent or indecisive God.
Therefore, as disciples of Jesus,
let our lives echo the words of St. Paul in today’s second reading:
To our God and
Father be glory forever and ever.
Let us lift up our eyes to our
blessed Lord Jesus Who has gone up on high to that mountain
whither He calls us to Himself, that He might lead
us His captives (Ps. 68:18) suitably
clothed in wedding garments,
into that feast of juicy rich food and pure choice
wines, being celebrated before the face of His Father, where:
Many are
invited, but few are chosen.