Has not God borne with you these many years? Be ye tolerant to others.
- Hosea Ballou
(Give thanks for the divine patience, and resolve to be more patient with someone who's been annoying you lately.)
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JGS 11:29-39A; PS 40:5, 7-8A, 8B-9, 10
MT 22:1-14
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and the elders of the people in parables
saying, "The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying,
'Tell those invited: "Behold, I have prepared my banquet,
my calves and fattened cattle are killed,
and everything is ready; come to the feast."'
Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Then the king said to his servants, 'The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.'
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to meet the guests
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
He said to him, 'My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?'
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.'
Many are invited, but few are chosen."
Reflection on the Scriptures |
The Gospel, taken from the daily lectionary cycle continues the readings from Matthew’s final “book” of teachings that anticipate the disclosure of God’s reign in the in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus tells a parable of a wedding banquet - the frequent biblical image for the Reign of God. The Banquet is the locus of the Reign of Peace and Plenty – the time
when justice will prevail, and all will enjoy the prosperity of unending mercy and love. In the marriage that is celebrated God will take the human family as his spouse. Such a celebration it will be – the guests are invited to receive this extravagant generosity of the only true King.
As often as I have heard this parable, I felt a sense of shock to hear that the invited guests are too busy about many important things to drop everything and respond to this phenomenal invitation. The second shock is the recognition that I am one of the “invited guests.” Through Baptism I have been invited into the reality of the Reign of God – right here on earth – and
my companions at the banquet are the poor and the sick, the crippled and the homeless – those long neglected and living on the margins. My wedding gown – the guarantor of entry to the banquet – is my true “yes” to God’s will, whatever it is in my life.
- by Eileen Burke-Sullivan
Revelations of Divine Love
- by Julian of Norwich
Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 62
“God is Very Father and Very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him by the salvation of Mankind through the working of Grace”
And all this is of the Nature-Goodness of God, by the working of Grace. God is Nature in His being: that is to say, that Goodness that is Nature, it is God. He is the ground, He is the substance, He is the same thing that is Nature-hood. And He is very Father and very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him by the
salvation of man through the working of Grace.
For of all natures that He hath set in diverse creatures by part, in man is all the whole; in fulness and in virtue, in fairness and in goodness, in royalty and nobleness, in all manner of majesty, of preciousness and worship. Here may we see that we are all beholden to God for nature, and we are all beholden to God for grace. Here may we see us needeth not greatly to seek far out to know sundry natures, but to
Holy Church, unto our Mother’s breast: that is to say, unto our own soul where our Lord dwelleth; and there shall we find all now in faith and in understanding. And afterward verily in Himself clearly, in bliss.
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