Parishable Items

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Chinnappan Pelavendran

Jesus used various parables to explain the concept of the kingdom of God. The parables show us that it is God’s will that all people be saved and He offers to humanity the gifts of salvation. The readings today, including the Gospel parable, invite us to accept God’s invitation with joyful hearts. The word of God challenges us to examine our own response to His call. God extends to us the greatest invitation we will ever receive: come to the feast, come to the banquet of eternal life. Sooner or later, each one of us has to give Him an answer. “Yes, I am coming,” or, “No, I will not come.” The choice is ours.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah invites us to have a glimpse of heaven. Our loving God has a plan for each one of us; the Lord of Hosts will prepare for all people a banquet of rich food. He will remove the mourning veil; He will wipe all tears from our eyes. No sadness or pain, only celebration in the heavenly banquet. Today’s Responsorial Psalm presents God as the Good Shepherd who nourishes, leads, and protects His flock. In the second reading, St. Paul advises the Philippians to have trust in the power of and goodness of a providing God, who, in Jesus, has invited us to participate in the Heavenly Banquet.

In the Gospel, we hear that the King, who is God the Father, gave a feast for his son’s wedding. Jesus is the groom wedded to the Church. The Church is the Bride of the Lamb. For this wedding, the king sent His servants, that is the prophets in the Old Testament, to invite people to the wedding but they would not come. The chosen people were not living according to the covenant. As a result, the king sent his troops, to destroy those murderers and burn their city. This could be a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. Then the king gave an order to invite everyone whom they found on the road because those who were invited were not worthy. The chosen people rejected the invitation, but a huge number of non–Jews, the Gentiles, came to Jesus and had faith in Him.

Those absentees are not necessarily sinners; they are generally engaged in legitimate work, not sinful activity. One goes to the farm, another to his business. These are necessary and useful occupations. Sometimes what keeps us away from the joy of the kingdom is not sin but our preoccupations with the necessities of life. To be serious with our job is a good thing, but when our job keeps us away from attending the Lord’s Supper, it has become an obstacle to our faith.

To be a participant in the kingdom of God is a privilege as well as a responsibility. The responsibility is to accept the invitation and to undergo change in our lives. It is a change from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, from hatred to forgiveness, and from greediness to sharing.

The celebration of the Holy Mass is called ‘heaven on earth,’ a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Before Communion, we hear the words; this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb. This is not only an invitation to receive the body and blood of Jesus in Holy Communion. It is also an invitation to the eternal wedding feast in heaven.

God wants everybody to be saved. He invites everyone to His feast. Therefore, let us always say “Yes” to His invitation, and clothe ourselves with the garment of love, so that we may worthily enter the eternal joy and glory of Heaven.

This entry was posted on October 14, 2023 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Heaven, Homily, Sunday Homilies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.