28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This weekend we pray especially for peace in the Holy Land as we remember all those who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attack on Israel. This event has shown that Hamas has no respect for the lives of the people Israeli, Palestine or anyone else. The attack was barbaric and there is no justification for the violence that it has brought to the people of the region. In the first reading this Sunday Isaiah presents a vision of hope for the People of God. There will be a banquet of immense proportions on the Lord’s Mountain. The spirit of the people will be redeemed and there will be salvation from reproach, from tears, and the terror of death. The message of the reading is good news especially these days when the news is so horrific especially coming from the Holy Land.
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 doing and saying things had been criticized by the “the chief priests and the elders of the people.” They rejected him so now he turns to everyone on the road and he welcomes the outcasts the poor, the sinners, and the outsiders. Matthew emphasizes, not only the importance of the meal, but the urgent need we have to respond to God the fathers invitation to his feast. In the parable those who did respond to the invitation, did so with enthusiasm and joy. They knew a good thing when they heard it and 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 where we are now as well as pointing to eternal life in heaven. This weekend’s parable reminds us that God’s invitation is his gift to us, and it is freely given so that we can accept or ignore it.
We are invited to a feast of great joy and we need to make sure that others feel welcome to join us on our journey to the feast, especially those who don’t get invitations to feasts very often if at all. Those who gathered in from the highways and byways had no claim on the king who really is God our Father. We, too, have no claim on God, We do not merit God’s invitation on our own. It is a grace the father 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 and enjoy it when we get there instead of being like the invited guests who did not come to the wedding feast who were left behind.
Fullerton T 