Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Jesus often uses parables to offer illustrations of what God is like, the nature of God’s kingdom, and what it means to be a citizen of that kingdom. However, over the last two Sundays, Jesus has used parables to illustrate how to be “unlike” a citizen of the kingdom – the two sons, the tenants of the vineyard, and, this week, the parable of the wedding and it's guests.

What is Jesus telling us by these three stories? 

The parables of Jesus are important to the writers of the Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke. At times each writer repeat the same stories in their own accounts of Jesus’ teaching, though they differ in their points of detail. This is one such parable as a version of it is also found in St Luke’s gospel.

What is the moral of the story? Primarily it is about taking up God’s invitation to eternal salvation, an invitation that is open to all. Our place, if we refuse will, be taken up by someone else.

Banquets are lovely things; we have all been at different forms of banquets at different times in our lives. We hear in the reading from Isaiah this Sunday of the description of eternal life as a great and lavish party where the host is God Himself. The banquet in Sunday's gospel symbolises the blessing of God’s salvation, not a one-off time limited event, but something beautiful and eternal.

At the time of Jesus, wedding guests would have received and accepted an invitation well ahead of the event and it was customary for the host to send a messenger around to announce that things were ready. So it seems that the guests in the parable have accepted the initial invitation but rejected the second. This would have been seen as a deep and wounding insult to the host. But in the parable the host is not just anyone, but a king. To refuse a king would have been seen at least as insubordination, perhaps treason.

The important people of the king’s court are replaced by strangers. The strangers have no status to speak of, they are like us, ordinary people, a mixture of good and bad, light and dark, the virtuous and sinners. The invitation is to all, at this stage without exception of exclusion. Just as God calls everyone to a relation with him, everyone is invited.

Well that sounds great but what about the incident in the story with the guest wearing the wrong wedding garment and being expelled? At the time of Jesus there was not a special garment as such but people were expected to do their best to look good for a special occasion, just as we do now.

The point that Jesus is making is that God’s invitation to salvation is open to all, a free gift from him to us, universal, everyone is included but this invitation is not devoid of standards for how we live our lives. We need to make a commitment to change our clothing of weakness and sin, and do our best to put on clean clothing, permitting ourselves to be clothed in Christ. The wedding garment represents the love of God and each other - repentance; faith; belief; a change of heart and soul. 

Where are you up to with this? Where am I?

In attending the sacrifice of the Mass we come to a banquet – the banquet of the Lamb of God. We are truly blessed as we are invited and have responded to the invitation of the supper of the Lamb.

Reflecting on this for a moment, what does the wedding garment of your soul look like right here and now? We have been called but are we worthy to be chosen?

Please accept an assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. I am away for the next two weeks in Rome, however please be assured of my prayers for you at the holy places.

God bless and keep you always.

Fr Chris