by Fr. Tommy Lane
How can we describe our relationship with God? How can we describe the spiritual life that God offers us? We have to use human terms to describe what God offers us. Jesus also spoke about spiritual matters using human terms. His parables teach us using things from everyday life. That is why, in the Gospel today, Jesus described the kingdom of heaven as a wedding reception. The king sent servants to bring in the invited guests. The king in the parable is obviously God. God is inviting us to life with him. God offers us his life now, not just after death, but God is inviting us to share his life right now. How? Prayer is the way above all to share in the life of God now. Prayer is accepting the king’s invitation to the banquet.
I like the books on prayer written by a contemporary French writer, Jacques Philippe. In his book, Thirsting for Prayer, he describes prayer in this way:
To pray is to spend time freely with God just for the joy of being together. It is to love, because giving our time means giving our lives. Love does not mean primarily to do something for the other person; it means being there with them. Prayer trains us to be there with God, in a simple act of loving attention. (Kindle Location 234)
Prayer is simply spending time freely with God in loving attention. To use the words of Jesus’ parable today, when we pray, we enter the wedding feast of the king.
There is a shock about halfway through the parable. Some of those invited were not interested in accepting the invitation because they were too busy with their own affairs. One went to his farm, and another went to his business. In other words, these individuals had no time for God. What a sadness that people can get so wound up in the things created by God that they forget God. Jesus warned against this on other occasions: earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said seek the kingdom of God first and everything else will be given you (Matt 6:34). He said not to worry about your life and what you are to eat nor about your body and what to wear. This is what we read Jesus said in Matt 6:25-29:
Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these.
When Jesus visited the home of Martha and Mary, Mary spent time with Jesus while Martha was busy. Jesus said to Martha,
Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her (Luke 10:41-42)
Being caught up in our own affairs and not having time for Jesus is really in a sense saying no to God, saying no to the invitation in Jesus’ parable today. Jesus’ parable today and his parables in recent Sunday Gospels remind us in a number of different ways about God’s invitation. Last Sunday we heard Jesus’ parable about all God did for the vineyard hoping it would produce good grapes. Three Sundays ago we heard Jesus’ parable about the landowner going out many times during the day to hire workers for his vineyard not wanting anyone to be idle. All these parables have one thing in common: God is continually inviting us and offering us his life.
It was a shock halfway through today’s parable when people were too busy to accept the king’s invitation. There is another shock at the end of the parable when someone goes to the wedding reception but doesn’t bother to dress properly for it and was removed from the wedding reception. When we die, in order to enter the kingdom of heaven we have to have our wedding garment and be dressed properly; in other words, our lives have to be in order. Wearing the wedding garment is facing our judgment with our lives ready for heaven. If we do not have the wedding garment, God in his loving mercy has given us Purgatory where we can get our wedding garment ready to enter the kingdom of heaven. Purgatory is a place of spiritual growth where people grow and get ready to enter heaven. It is a place of hope and looking forward to the future in heaven. It is good to pray for the souls in Purgatory regularly as we do in the Intercessions during every Mass. We remember our departed loves ones with prayers and Masses offered for them on special occasions such as anniversaries. They rely on our prayers to help them get their wedding garment ready so they can enter heaven. That future in heaven is described in the first reading today also in human terms (Isa 25:6-10). Just like Jesus’ parable, the first reading also described heaven as a feast.
God has offered each of us an invitation. What a sadness it is that some people are too caught up in the affairs of life to give God time. One way to accept God’s invitation is to pray. Again, here are the words of Jacques Philippe on prayer:
To pray is to spend time freely with God just for the joy of being together. It is to love, because giving our time means giving our lives. Love does not mean primarily to do something for the other person; it means being there with them. Prayer trains us to be there with God, in a simple act of loving attention. (Kindle Location 234)
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2020
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday Year A
Called to be Chosen 2023
Psalm Related: The Lord is my shepherd