Homily This Sunday

Dressed for the Feast

My dear friends in Christ, there is something deeply human about a wedding invitation. A card arrives in the mail, heavy paper and elegant lettering, and it tells you something wonderful before you have even read the details: someone wants you there. Someone has set a place for you at a table of joy.

Today's readings are about exactly that kind of invitation, except the host is God, and the table is set for the whole human race.

Listen again to Isaiah. "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines." Isaiah's people had known siege, famine, and exile. Yet the prophet dares to describe the future as a banquet with the best food and the finest wine. And then he goes further: God "will destroy death forever" and "wipe away the tears from all faces."

Brothers and sisters, notice what is on God's menu. It is not only food. It is the end of grief. It is the removal of the "veil that veils all peoples," the shroud of death hanging over every human life. This is the deepest hunger of the human heart, and God promises to satisfy it.

Then Jesus takes up that same image in the Gospel. A king gives a wedding feast for his son. The Fathers of the Church saw immediately who this is. Saint Gregory the Great taught that the king is the Father, the son is Christ, and the wedding is the union of Christ with his Church, God joining himself to our humanity. The feast Isaiah foresaw has a bridegroom, and his name is Jesus.

But the parable takes a painful turn. The invited guests refuse to come. Some simply ignore it: "one to his farm, another to his business." Others go further and mistreat the messengers. In its first setting, Jesus is speaking to religious leaders who rejected the prophets and were now rejecting him.

My friends, we should not hear this as a story only about other people long ago. Look at the excuses. Nobody says, "I hate the king." They say, in effect, "I'm busy." A farm. A business. Ordinary, decent concerns that quietly crowd out the one invitation that matters most.

That is the danger most of us actually face. Few of us are hostile to God. Many of us are simply distracted. The Sunday when the game is on. The prayer that gets postponed until things calm down. The confession we keep meaning to make. Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on this parable, observed that the guests refused not out of malice so much as because they were absorbed in their own affairs, and he warned that we too can become so busy that we leave no room for God.

And yet the king does not cancel the feast. "Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find." The servants gather "bad and good alike," and the hall is filled. Here is the heart of the Gospel: God's generosity will not be defeated by human refusal. The door is thrown open to everyone, to the outsider, to the sinner, to those who never imagined they would be welcome. That includes you and me.

Which makes the ending of the parable so striking. The king comes in and sees a man "not dressed in a wedding garment." He asks him, "My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?" And the man "was reduced to silence."

What is this garment? It cannot be wealth, because the guests were gathered off the streets. Saint Augustine asked this very question in one of his sermons. He said it is not baptism alone, and not merely faith, since even the wicked can receive sacraments and the demons believe. Following Saint Paul, Augustine concluded that the wedding garment is charity, love from a pure heart. Saint Gregory the Great taught the same: the wedding garment is love.

Dear friends, this is good news, not a threat. The invitation is free. We do nothing to earn our place at the table. But having been invited, we are asked to let the feast change us. In the ancient world, a host might even provide garments for his guests. So too our King provides the garment. In baptism we are clothed in Christ, as the white garment reminds us. What he asks is that we wear it, that we do not walk into his joy dressed as though nothing has happened to us.

The man's real problem was not his clothing. It was his silence. When the king called him "friend," he had nothing to say. He wanted the feast without the friendship. He wanted the food without the Bridegroom. That is the sobering word: "Many are invited, but few are chosen." Being in the hall is not the same as belonging to the wedding.

So how do we put on this garment of love? Saint Paul gives us a glimpse in the second reading. Writing from prison, he says, "I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me." Paul is not boasting of his own willpower. He is describing what it looks like to be clothed in Christ. Whether he has much or little, his life is anchored in the One who gives him strength.

And he adds a promise for us: "My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." The King who invites us also supplies what we need to come properly dressed. If you feel you lack love, ask him for it. If your garment is stained by sin, he has given us the sacrament of Reconciliation, where it is washed clean. Grace is not a dress code we must meet on our own. It is a gift we are invited to receive.

Brothers and sisters, everything we have heard today is about to become present on this altar. The Catechism teaches that the Eucharist is a "pledge of the glory to come" and an anticipation of the wedding feast of the Lamb (CCC 1402–1403). Isaiah's mountain, the king's banquet hall: this is where they meet. In a few moments, the priest will lift up the Host and say, "Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb." That is your wedding invitation, spoken aloud. The Bridegroom himself is the food.

This is why we come to Mass not as spectators but as guests. Not dragged here by obligation, not distracted by our farms and businesses, but glad to be invited. And it is why we prepare our hearts, so that when the King looks at us, he finds a friend clothed in love.

So here is a simple step for this week. Before you come to Mass next Sunday, take five quiet minutes, perhaps Saturday evening, and ask yourself two questions. First: what is my "farm" or "business," the thing that most often crowds God out? Second: where do I most need to put on love, with my spouse, a child, a coworker, a neighbor I have been avoiding? Then ask the Lord to supply what you lack. And if your garment needs washing, make a good confession.

Dear friends, the invitation has already been sent. The table is set. The finest wine is poured. The Bridegroom is waiting, and he calls each of us by name, "My friend." Let us not be silent. Let us answer him with our love, and come to his feast with joy. Amen.

Sources Consulted

- Saint Augustine, *Sermon 90* (on the wedding garment as charity) - Saint Gregory the Great, *Homily 38 on the Gospels* (*Forty Gospel Homilies*) - *Catechism of the Catholic Church*, nos. 543–546, 1335, 1402–1405 - Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, October 9, 2011 (on Matthew 22:1–14) - Thomas Aquinas, *Catena Aurea*, commentary on Matthew 22 - Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, *The Gospel of Matthew* (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) - *Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament*, notes on Matthew 22 and Philippians 4 - USCCB, *New American Bible, Revised Edition*, readings and notes (bible.usccb.org)