TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
14-15 October 2023 – St. Lambert
Parish
Is 25:6-10a
Phil 4:12-14, 19-20
Mt
22:1-14
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
On this
mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast…
Who wouldn’t long for this great day on
the Lord’s Mountain about which Isaiah prophesies?
The Lord God will wipe away the tears
from every face; the reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth…
And yet from what we hear recounted
in today’s Gospel and from the news accounts that come to our attention, not to
mention sometimes our own sad experience with relatives and friends, it must be
said that being a practicing Catholic is not generally a high priority. Being a
good Catholic is not considered the be all and the end all of life in this
world. Not a few people seem to run the other way or worse when the king
invites them to his son’s wedding.
In our Gospel today from St. Matthew,
we hear recounted the parable of the king eager to celebrate his son’s wedding
feast with his subjects. When the invited guests refused to come and even
mistreated or killed the king’s servants, the king had these ingrates and their
cities destroyed. He then filled the banquet hall with all sorts of people whom
he had virtually constrained to come in from the highways and byways. Refusing
or declining the king’s invitation was not an option. The king and his officers
would not take “no” for an answer. Even so, the man who presented himself at
the feast without a proper wedding garment was punished, hogtied, and cast into
the darkness outside. “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Just by way of an aside, if you are
looking for a text from Scripture to explain to unbelieving friends why we
baptize babies, this would be a good candidate.
“’Go out, therefore, into the main
roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into
the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was
filled with guests.”
On the one hand, the parable
describes the universal nature of the call to holiness. At the same time as the
text highlights individual human freedom, the parable points to the sobering
reality of people in this world who either turn their back on God in His Church,
even lash out against him and his servants, or sort of participate
half-heartedly or under some kind of mental reservation, like the man in the
parable not dressing for the occasion of a wedding banquet. The simple truth is
that if you would be part of the Lord’s great wedding feast spoken about by
Christ in the Gospel, you must not only enter in, but also act and dress the
part, that is, really enter in by renouncing sin and all that is contrary to
God’s will. To find your place at the king’s big table you must break with
Satan, with all his works, and with all his empty promises.
The Gospel scene may strike us as a bit odd to
the extent that we might find the king’s behavior unreasonable, his forcing
someone to come to the party and then on top of it insisting that person dress
up like a proper guest. “My king! Take me as I am! Like it or lump it!”
For a lot of
years that may have been my reaction to the reading of this parable. Why is the
king so uppity? Why doesn’t he take the man as he is? Why the formality of
dress? After all, it was not as if he was trying to get into this feast. In a
sense, this wedding celebration was forced on him! You can imagine him saying,
“There I was minding my own business and then all of a sudden they grabbed me
literally and now here I am at the wedding of the king’s son!”
In the old days and yet still the classic
example of refusal of the king’s invitation was noted in Catholic parents who
for whatever reason refused to pass on their Catholic faith to their children. It
is the old story of people who don’t baptize their children as soon as possible
in infancy, saying it would be better for them to choose Baptism on their own. That
may be their claim based on some false notion of human freedom, but no! It’s
wrong. The point is that we belong at the wedding feast the king prepares for
his son. As there is no better alternative, whether by failing to baptize, or by
not setting a good example, or by not properly instructing our children in the
faith. If we do not heed the king’s call without hesitation, then we reject God
and we harm those entrusted to our care. We could also mention the tragedy of
those who though brought up Catholic themselves at some time in their lives walk
away from the practice of the faith (and they seem to be many these days)!
The real-life
consequences of the faith are those described in today’s Gospel. They involve
embracing wholeheartedly the call we have received from our parents, in and
through the Church, to come and share in the king’s wedding feast. How could we
deprive a child of the great gift of Baptism? It would be like depriving that
child of life’s greatest good.
In our day especially, we can note
all those who pretend to set their own terms for belonging to the Church. The
parable’s example of the man showing up not properly dressed for the party best
describes this group of people who claim to remain in the Church on their own
terms. It is something which just cannot be, for that too would be a rejection
of the king and his invitation. Here too punishment is due. Hogtie him and
throw him outdoors into the dark! This snub of our duties as Catholics must
have its consequences, this rejection of the king, whether overt and aggressive
as it was done by the first group of invitees or somewhat cynical and passive
as in the case of the man from the street still refusing to dress the part of
an honored guest.
The invitation to
come to the feast cannot be anything other than a call to engagement with the
king and ultimately a call to obedience to the king’s will. What do I care
about the king’s son getting married? Why should I engage myself by going all
the way and getting dressed up for the occasion? What ultimately is in it for
me? Talk about the obligations of our Catholic life is an awkward sort of
conversation involving lifelong faithfulness in marriage and demanding chastity
according to our state in life, excluding all sexual activity outside of marriage.
Even within marriage, the marital act itself must be open to the creation of
new human life. Let’s try couching the thing in negative terms and saying that
to reject the king’s invitation is to throw our lot in with the devil. By
siding with God in His Church, we are committing ourselves to rejecting Satan
and his lies.
My suspicion is
that you are eager to correspond to the wishes of the king and to join in his
feast already now and for eternity. You want to live a good and holy life. Even
so, we fail and need the sacrament of Penance as an aid on our path to holiness.
We also have a burden to carry for others who fail in this regard. We must
teach those in our care about the urgency of a prompt and wholehearted response
to the invitation of the king. It can’t hurt to state it negatively both for
them and for us. A little dread of being cast down from God’s Mountain into the
depths of hell may be a great start on our path to the wedding feast, lest we
end up in the darkness outside.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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