Isaiah 25:6-10a,
Psalm 23:1 -3a.3b-4.5.6,
Philippians 4:12-14.19-20,
Matthew 22: 1-14 Full Readings
Saint John XXIIIGetting Ready For the Wedding Feast.
Today's first reading and the Gospel are talking about wedding feasts. A wedding feast is the time of joy and happiness and so God promises through Isaiah a feast on his holy Mountain, where we shall eat, drink and get satisfied. The wedding feast is an image of the heavenly banquet which requires us to prepare for it when we are still here on earth.
Today's Gospel presents to us a King who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He invited his guests but surprisingly at the time of the feast none of them turned up while giving different reasons. The servants then went to the streets and invited everyone they came across to come for a wedding and one came without a wedding garment. He was bound and chased away to where there is grinding of teeth and suffering.
A wedding is a time of joy and completion after long preparation, a time of love and of complete satisfaction. In Judaism at the time of Jesus the coming of the Messiah is often compared to a wedding-feast. The Letter to the Ephesians teaches that the love in a human wedding is only a pale shadow of Christ’s love for his bride, the Church. Therefore, this wedding feast anticipates the wedding in heaven where Christ the bridegroom marries his bride the Church. Are you ready for this wedding?
In today's Gospel this story of the royal wedding, two things go drastically wrong. First, the original wedding-guests refuse to come. Not only do they refuse, but they brutally maltreat the innocent messengers, and the king (who must stand for God) relentlessly burns down their city. Secondly, the man who has no wedding-garment is slung out. A wedding-garment is a standard Jewish image for works of generosity expected of every faithful Jew. For us Christians, too, the story constitutes a double warning.
God always invites us to commune with him, to enjoy and be happy with him at the wedding feast, to eat and drink without money in his presence as he tells us in Isaiah 55:1. However, sometimes we stubbornly refuse God's invitation to come and stay in his presence, communing with others especially at the table of Eucharist, and give various reasons, which most of them are worldly pleasures. Brethren, we were given by grace salvation from God but it will be unfortunate if this grace is taken away from us and given to others. Let's endeavour always to answer to God's invitation and come in time otherwise, when we reach the heavenly feast we won't be allowed in.
The invitation was carried on to those who were not invited but the one who came without a wedding garment was thrown out. As we have seen, a wedding garment is dressing ourselves with love, charity and good works in order to be worthy to attend the heavenly feast. It's not enough to come at the invitation of God but we have to come with the right wedding garment. God invites daily in his word and through his servants that as Christians we must clothe ourselves with works of mercy, love and charity so that we inherit eternal life and in this way we are getting ourselves ready for the wedding feast in heaven.
Our invitation today is that we should start now getting ready for the heavenly feast. All of us have been invited and so let us all be present but with the right garment. Reflect today on how you are making yourself ready for the wedding feast prepared by God. Are you clothing yourself with works of mercy and charity and showing Love for the wedding feast? Pray today that the Spirit of the Lord will always help us choose the right garments for the heavenly feast. If we go astray, let us remember that God has promised us to make us his people again and to help find the right garment as we see in the first reading, provided we respond to his invitation.
Let us Pray
Lord, help us always to clothe ourselves with works of charity which are the right garments for the heavenly feast so after reaching there, we may enjoy with you eternally the happiness you only give. Amen
Be blessed
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