October 15, 2017 — Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
IS 25: 6 – 10A ; PS 23: 1 – 6; PHIL 4: 12 – 14, 19 – 20; MT 22: 1 – 14
Today’s Gospel from the Book of Matthew again includes parables. We have been hearing the Lord share parables with us throughout our readings in recent weeks. Interestingly Matthew contains 23 parables (or teachings classified as parables), while Luke has 28. Mark has only nine, and John has none.
The first parable we hear today is called The Parable of the Wedding Feast. In this story shared by Jesus for our benefit a king is hosting a wedding feast for his son. He sends out invitations and people ignore them or choose not to respond. It may seem somewhat remarkable to us that people turn down an invitation to a royal wedding feast.
Yet, the Lord invites us to join Him on a regular basis through Holy Scripture and the Sacraments. Many ignore the invitation, and in most cases are not even aware of the fact they have received it. Those who read this are aware of the invitation. The question is “How do we respond?”
What do we do after we attend a Holy Mass? What is our reaction to the reception of Christ’s incredible gift in the Eucharist? We may not make light of it like some of the people in the parable, but if we merely go our separate ways, and do not strive to be active disciples, we are basically doing the same thing as those Jesus describes in this parable. In one of his first appearances Pope Francis declared, “Go make disciples of all nations.” We cannot make disciples unless we are ourselves disciples.
