Everybody likes a party! Imagine being invited to the best party you could think of with the greatest food, beverages and company. Imagine being grateful for the invitation, looking forward to attending and also searching for a new outfit to wear to the event.
Yet, the invited guests in this Sunday ’s Gospel refused the invitation of their lives! What would make them do such a thing?
Let’s think back to times in our lives that we have refused or declined invitations and remember the reasons we did not go. Perhaps we had too many other things going on and were overwhelmed. Was the expense or distance to travel too much for us? Maybe we were uncomfortable with something about the gathering or event and decided it was best to forgo it. Were we genuinely sick, tired or otherwise unable?
For whatever reason, we missed something that someone else perhaps really wanted us to go to and the experience, now passed, will not come again. Did we later regret our decision? Do we wish we could do it over again and attend or participate? Are we happy with the choice we made? The Parable of The Wedding Feast is about God’s gracious invitation to share eternal life with Him forever in the banquet of Heaven. It teaches us that although salvation is God’s free gift to us, we must also choose it by the way we live. Some accept the invitation through lives of faith and
others refuse it through lives of sin and selfishness. The wedding guest not properly dressed in a wedding garment but who attempts to get into the banquet shows us that we must prepare ourselves for Heaven, clothing ourselves with faith, prayer and charity. We weave the proper garment for ourselves over a lifetime and nobody can make the garment for us. We choose Heaven not just once in our lives but through the daily series of moral choices that we encounter. Imagine if we felt excited for Heaven right now and shared that excitement with others through sharing faith and evangelization? When we do this, we encourage others to choose Christ and accept His invitation to divine friendship. May we accept God’s invitation to the feast of Paradise with faith, hope and joy.