TWENTY EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Is.25: 6-10/ Ps.23/ Phil.4:12-14,19-20/ Mt.22:1-14
It is
a sad reality that most of us would go to Sunday Mass out of obligation. We
have forgotten to associate such “obligation” as a celebration of God’s
abundance on the tables of the Word and the Eucharist. We have missed to see
the beauty of being together as one Christian community, one in mind and heart.
However,
this reality is not true for the late Vietnamese Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan who
was imprisoned for 13 years, nine of which were spent in solitary confinement.
Since, the Mass was not allowed in prison, he asked the guards to provide him
with wine as “medicine for his stomach pains.” And every day at three in the
afternoon, he would celebrate the Mass with only three drops of wine despite
the terror and darkness surrounding him. When asked by reporters what made him
survived such ordeal, he exclaimed, “the Eucharist!”
In
our gospel today, we heard of a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son.
He sends his servants to remind those invited but they refused to come. And so,
he asked his servants to invite all those they meet along the byroads. They do
so and the wedding hall was filled with banqueters.
The
feast is the Eucharist! God is the king who invited us to dine at the meal of
his Son, Jesus Christ! And like the feast, it is God himself who is inviting us
to join him at the Eucharistic table. If the President or the Pope invites us
for dinner, then, we cannot but respond to such invitation with joy! How much
more if it is God himself who is inviting us to join him at meal every Sunday? That
is why only when we realize that in every Eucharistic feast it is God who is
inviting us personally to celebrate with him his abundance, can we truly move
from obligation to simply a response of love! In life, when we truly love our
beloved, our respond to his goodness is not out of obligation but love!
In
the parable, the king while meeting the guests saw a man not dressed in a
wedding garment. In the end, the man was reduced to silence and he was thrown
into the darkness where there was wailing and grinding of teeth. To respond to
God’s invitation to join him at the Eucharist is not enough. To receive the
body and blood of Jesus at Mass is not enough. In every Sunday celebration, we
have to dress properly. I am not just speaking here about the proper dress code
but our moral disposition. If we want to look good physically in every party,
the same is true in the Mass. We must have that good inner disposition – our
works of charity! It is wrong to simply participate at Mass every Sunday, then,
the rest of the week, we continue to thrive on sinfulness. Every Sunday must be
both a culmination and a beginning. It is the culmination of our daily
commitment to remain faithful to him. It is also the beginning of our renewed
“yes” to follow him, to sacrifice with love, to carry our cross, and to nail
our sinful selves so that we can love Him more dearly and serve our neighbors
more sincerely!
Only
when we acknowledge God’s invitation and only when we properly dispose
ourselves through living a life of charity can the Eucharist become a feast of
God’s abundance in our lives, a source of hope and joy amidst a challenging and
complicated life!
May
our Sunday celebration of the Eucharist push us to re-echo the words of
Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan, “I am happy because you are here with me, because
you want me to live here with you!” Amen!
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