28th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
During last week two things happened and neither of them were COVID19 related. We had the launch last Saturday of the latest encyclical from Pope Francis Fratelli Tutti and on Wednesday of this week we had the feast of the Holy Rosary. The Letter from the Pope is about fraternity and social friendship that focuses on the universal dimension of the notion of fraternal love and we will hear about the letter in the days ahead. Last Wednesday we celebrated the feast of the Holy Rosary Pope Francis calls the rosary a “simple contemplative prayer, accessible to all, great and small, the educated and those with little education. in the Rosary while we repeat the Hail Mary we meditate on the Mysteries, on the events of Christ’s life, so as to know and love him ever better. The Rosary is an effective means for opening ourselves to God.”Each time we pray the Rosary, he said, “we are taking a step forward, towards the great destination of life”—heaven. May we take the opportunities that are given to us to join together in saying the rosary of our lady during this month of October in our families as individuals and as Parish Communities where we live.
In the Gospel reading for this Sunday we hear about the king sending his servants out to call all those who were invited to come to his son’s wedding but none of the invited guests would come. So the king told his servants to go out and invite everyone on the road to come to the wedding feast. Jesus tells the parable because his ways were criticized by the “chief priests and elders of the people.” They rejected him so now he turns to everyone else and he welcomes the poor, sinners, and outsiders. Matthew emphasizes, the urgent need we have to respond to God’s invitation to his feast. In the parable those who did respond to the invitation, “bad and good alike,” did so with enthusiasm. They knew a good thing when they heard it and so grasped it immediately, filling the banquet hall just as the king had wanted for his son. Today all of us who say we are Christians are also invited to the wedding feast and this is a pointer towards our participation in the life of the Church. We hold precious the image of God who calls the good and the bad to the banquet of life that leads to eternal life. The expectation is that we will prepare ourselves now by being dressed appropriately for the occasion. Perhaps the best description of the proper wardrobe for a Christian is given to us by the apostle Paul.
If we wear the clothes he describes the clothes of compassion, kindness humility, gentleness and patience we will never be thrown out of any banquet. In Colossians he tells us You are God’s chosen race, his saints; he loves you, and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience… Over all these clothes, to keep them together and complete them, put on love. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts. (Colossians 3:12-15) This weekend’s parable reminds us that God’s invitation is his gift to us, and it is given to us so that we can freely accept or ignore it. Those who were gathered in from the highways and byways had no claim on God. We, too, have no claim on God, We do not merit God’s invitation on our own. It is a grace God lovingly offers to each and every one of us. Hopefully all of us will be able to accept the invitation to come to the feast.
Fullerton T 