My Dear People,

Today both readings deal with a feast and a banquet. First, the Prophet Isaiah deals with a banquet on top of a mountain. When the word “mountain” is mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, it is a high point on earth, therefore closer to God. 

The Lord prepares a special feast for all the nations on Mount Zion. There he will provide succulent food and fine wine—a symbolic reference to the divine fare that God will provide, and which surpasses anything that man could imagine. 

These words prefigure the eucharistic banquet, instituted by Jesus in Jerusalem, in which he provides divine nourishment, his own Body and Blood, which strengthens the soul and is a pledge of future glory: “To share in “the Lord’s Supper’ is to anticipate the eschatological feast of the ‘marriage of the Lamb’ (Rev. 19:9)

 Celebrating this memorial of Christ risen and ascended into heaven, the Christian community waits “in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ” (John Paul II Dies Domini, 38). The saints often encourage us to bear this in mind when we receive the Eucharist: “It is an eternal pledge to us.

It assures us a place in heaven, and it is a guarantee that one day heaven will be our home. Moreover, Jesus Christ will raise up our bodies in glory, in accordance with how often and with what dignity we have received his Body in Holy Communion” (St. John Baptist Mary Vianney, Sermons on Holy Communion). 

St. Paul reminds us of the phrase: “God will destroy death forever” when he rejoices that the resurrection of Christ marks the definitive victory over death (1 Cor 15:54-55).  It appears also in the book of Revelation when it proclaims the salvation that has been wrought by the Lamb who has died and risen again: “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). The Church, too, speaks in a similar vein in its prayer for the dead, beseeching God to receive them into his Kingdom: “There we hope to share in your glory when every tear will be wiped away.  (Roman Missal Eucharistic Prayer III). 

In the Gospel, Jesus also speaks of a banquet. Jesus reveals how intensely God the Father desires salvation of all men—the banquet is the Kingdom of heaven—and the mysterious malice that lies in willingly rejecting the invitation to attend - a malice so vicious that it merits eternal punishment. No human argument makes any sense that goes against God’s call to conversion, acceptance of faith, and its consequences.  

The Fathers see the first invitees as the Jewish people. In salvation history God addresses himself first to the Israelites and then to all the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). 

Intelligence and hostility cause the Israeltites to reject God’s loving call and therefore suffer condemnation. But the Gentiles also need to respond faithfully to the call they have received, otherwise they will suffer the fate of being cast “into outer darkness.” 

“The marriage,” says St. Gregory the Great (In Evangelia Homiliae, 36) “is the wedding of Christ and his Church, and the garment is the virtue of charity.  The person who goes into the feast without a wedding garment is someone who believes in the Church but does not have charity.”

The wedding garment signifies the disposition a person needs to possess in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Even though one may belong to the Church, if one does not have these dispositions - meaning one does not respond to the grace God offers,  that person will be condemned on the day God judges all mankind. 

Yours in Christ, 

Fr. Vincent Clemente