Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Lord calls everyone to this wedding feast which is the kingdom of heaven. Some want to attend and others made excuses and even killed the servants inviting them. It is a strong parable for the High Priests, the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders and for all Jewish people. The wedding was prepared even for those who didn’t want to go then and now.
I very much like the expression that the king said to the servants after many declined the invitation: go out to the crossroads and invite whoever you find! Pope Francis would say, go out to the peripheries and announce the good news. The gospel said the wedding feast is ready but those who were invited were not worthy to come. So find those at the crossroads and bring them to the wedding. Who are those who are waiting at the crossroads? Those who don’t know where to go.
The ones who are standing at the crossroads are there because they don’t know which way to go. Perhaps, they are those who are trying to please everyone. There are those who don’t know what to do with their lives, those who don’t know what to do with their family, or those who don’t know what to do in their ministry, those who don’t know what to do in their parish, or in their work or their studies or with their children.
When we don’t know how to do anything the Lord calls us to the wedding feast. He sends some prophets, some messengers, or angels to your life to bring you to the wedding. They are the ones who brought you to the Church or brought you to the Christian community or brought you to hear the preaching of the good news. Those who are invited to the wedding hear the good news that God loves you and wants you to be present at this feast.
The gospel said that the guests were good and bad alike, and they filled the room. They are all treated the same, but you are invited to the wedding and Jesus Christ will be betrothed to you. It is not that you come to be a guest and take pictures. You will be his spouse, his betrothed. You are the bride and Christ is the groom. He comes to marry each one of us to himself! You are not there to see how the bride looks. You come because you will be the spouse.
As was said, the guests are bad and good, which is a very important point. The king enters and he sees that one does not have the wedding garment on. To have the wedding garment is not to be impeccable because there were good and bad people there. If it was just for the sinless the bad ones would have been thrown out. Among all of them there was one who didn’t have the wedding garment. What takes us out of the wedding celebration, brothers and sisters, is not if we are good or bad. This is very important for what takes us out of the feast is not to have this garment.
And what is this wedding garment that we put on in every Eucharist? What do we do when we start the celebration of every Mass? Let us humbly call to mind our sins. This is the wedding garment. This is the only thing needed to enter this feast; you need to recognize your sins to be able to marry your Spouse. The Lord needs you to be poor, to recognize your weakness, to see that you have feet of clay. We are like a clay pot that is half broken. What is important is to recognize this. This is to have the wedding garment. With this garment I can enter the banquet. I can enter into marriage with the Lord; I can be betrothed with him in the cross, the glorious cross, which is a bed of love.
We are invited to be espoused, betrothed through the cross on this bed of love. Why are you espoused as a wife on the cross? Because I am a sinner and Christ is on the cross because I am a sinner. Christ comes to the eucharist to love me as I am because I am a sinner, and he forgives me. It is fundamental to recognize that I am a sinner. This is the wedding garment that he hopes you have on.
I hope you have a very nice, well cleaned, beautiful, freshly ironed from the laundry wedding garment, so you can wear it and we can smell the perfume because Christ is coming to love you and me as we are. We are vessels of clay that have this mission to carry this treasure of love to the world. What a wonderful treasure we carry despite our brokenness and our poverty.