A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus began, to address the chief priests and the elders of the people, and once again, he was using a parable. The reign of god, he said, may be like unto a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon those who had been invited to the wedding, but they refused to come. So a second time, he sent out his servants saying, tell those who have been invited, look, I have my dinner all prepared.
My bullocks and corn fed cattle are all killed. Everything is ready. Come to my feast. Well, some of those invited ignored even this invitation and they went their way. One to his farm, another to his business.
The rest of them laid hold of the servants, insulted them, and killed them. At this, the king was furious and sent his army to destroy those murderers and to burn their city. Then he said to the servants, my banquet is ready, but those who are invited are unfit to come. That is why now you must go out into the by roads and invite to the wedding anybody you come upon. So the servants went out into the by robes and rounded up everyone they met, the bad as well as the good.
And so the wedding hall was filled with the banqueters. Then the king came in to greet his guests and caught sight of a man there not properly dressed for a wedding feast. So the king said, my friend, how is it that you come in here not properly dressed? The man had nothing to say. The king then said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the night to wail and grind his teeth.
The invited are many, but the elect are few. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to holy spirit. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Well, between you and me, there's there are many sort of mysterious aspects to this narrative, but the first thing to remember is that it's a parable.
And the essence of a parable is to make a point, not to cover the whole waterfront, not to cover all questions with and proper answers, but it's to make a point. And to make a point, a parable often exaggerates. It goes beyond what we would call facts. It goes beyond sometimes what we'd say is logic. To make a point, it's a fiction, but it's used to make a point.
Because if you take this and analyze it, a lot of it doesn't make sense. A man having a banquet and he sends out people to, you know, to sort of corral those who were invited and they take and they murdered him, and then he goes and destroy the city and then he sends out other people. Well, this takes time. How can you have a banquet already to be to to be served and go out and start destroying cities? Anyway, you you see, you can make nonsense out of it as you can out of anything printed.
Keep that in mind. That's the beauty of a book. Any book, including the bible, you can make anything out of it you want unless there's an authority to tell you something more than the printed word. Well, to come back to this parable, the point I wanna make here, what is our lord saying? And he says it unequivocally.
First, that people are invited to his banquet. Point number one, you are invited. You're not you don't have a right. Think of this about this all this stuff about women in the priesthood, anybody, as if they had a right to be priests. Nobody has a right.
Anyway, you are invited. Now that's the first point. That's perfectly clear. And of those invited, they refuse. Notice, they refuse.
They will not to come. It's an act of the will. They make a decision. Thirdly, by force, he gets his banquet hall filled. But but there's one guy in there who isn't properly attired for a wedding.
Now there have been books written about this because some of this seems so unfair, absolutely unfair, that you go out and invite somebody to come into your house and then because they're not properly dressed now notice, what is the penalty? What is the penalty for this guy who was not properly dressed for a bank for a wedding? He is bound hand and foot. He is thrown out into the darkness of the night where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. That's a very common phrase in the Old Testament.
It it it it expresses complete anger and despair, everything, gnashing of teeth. This is what our lord is saying. Look, I have called. Many are called. And then our lord says, few are chosen.
Merely being invited doesn't make you an elect. Now this is perfectly clear. What are that what I've said beyond equivocation, beyond all ambiguity, and it's a hard saying. Let's not try to soften it. It is a severe saying.
But it's just one of the severe sayings of our lord. As a matter of fact, most of the sayings of our lord are severe. And let us not forget that. Today, for the last twenty five or thirty years, there's been such a softening of what it means to be a Catholic. The softening is so much that in in in the practical affairs of life, there's practically no difference.
Take the divorce rate. Take the reaction to abortion. Practically no difference. Of course, if you can believe the polls, which I don't. But, anyway, that's what the polls say, and they can win and lose elections.
This is serious stuff. Our lord is serious. He's the son of god, and he doesn't play games. If there's one thing he never said, if there's one thing he never even suggested, that he has come to make you comfortable, to make me comfortable in a comfortable world. That is one thing he never even remotely suggested.
Religion is not a comfortable garment to wear if it's the honest to God religion. It's a very uncomfortable garment to wear. And that you see, some people get shocked by this when it when they find themselves in that position. When they find themselves praying and nothing happens, they don't have any feeling about it. They go to mass on Sunday, but father, I don't get anything out of it.
Who said they went to mass to get something out of it? Who says you should primarily worship God to get something out of it for yourself? Who said that? What's the basis for this? And yet this is the most common thing I hear today about from people who do who who for one reason don't go to mass.
Say, oh, it just seems so humdrum. I don't like the singing. I don't like the kneeling. I don't like the homily. Of course, that's alright.
And they don't like they say, as a matter of fact, I'm irritated. I look around and see all these other hypocrites around me. You hear that once in a while? I the idea is, first of all, there's a god. Secondly, we're his creatures.
And thirdly, we owe him worship. Whether I enjoy it or not is something else. Whether I enjoy living up me up to my obligations as a Catholic is irrelevant. The question is, do I do it? People walk out of their marriages because they're not being fulfilled.
Priests leave the pulpit because they're not leaving being fulfilled. Men and women religious leave their congregations because they're not being fulfilled. I've heard that odd nauseam, which means the odd nauseam means you're running to the rail of the ship on the louvered side and feeding the fish. It's nauseating because it's it's such an absolute, contradictory attitude of what is real. We are not in this world to satisfy ourselves.
We're in this world to give honor and glory to god. I don't get married simply because it's something that I wanna do, something that's gonna make me happy, I hope. But a Christian says, I'm doing it for the honor and glory of god. It's very well for a husband and wife or any other commitment, priest or religious, to make their commitments, but their primary commitment is to god. Anything else is shortchanging the situation.
Anything else is a caricature caricature of the reality. And say, so our lord, we have been invited by baptism. Do you wish to be baptized? Do you wish to be ordained a priest? Do you wish to take these vows?
Do you wish to take this man, this woman as your husband or your wife? You are invited. You're not compelled. You're not forced. And our lord said, few of the invited are among the elect.
Now he said that. And notice there's punishment here. You just don't get away with it. Let us not be afraid to stand up and look at Jesus Christ, and the Jesus Christ you see is no mollycoddle. He's the son of god who died on the cross.
Died on a cross. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.