On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast
of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined (Isaiah 25:6,
First Reading).
The kingdom of
heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent
his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast .
. . (Matthew 22:2-3 Gospel).
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel Matthew 22:1-14 or 22:1-10 (English Standard Version Anglicised)
Again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The
kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for
his son, and sent
his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they
would not come. Again
he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have
prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered,
and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’ But they paid no attention and went off,
one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them
shamefully, and killed them. The king was
angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned
their city. Then he
said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were
not worthy. Go
therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you
find.’ And those
servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both
bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.
[“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he
saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you
get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind
him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that
place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few
are chosen.”]
These last few Sundays Jesus has been speaking to us in parables that show both the overwhelming generosity of God and the possibility that we can reject that generosity. In today's parable of the wedding feast the response to God's invitation to his banquet runs from apathy to outright hostility where the servants bringing the king's invitation are murdered.
And in the second part of the Gospel, which many priests will no doubt omit, we have the insolence of the guest who turns up clearly showing disrespect to all around him, including the king. (I wonder if the committee in the Vatican who drew up the Lectionary we have been using since 1969 thought that some of the words of Jesus might be 'dangerous' for us since they have given us the option today of leaving out the last four verses of the Gospel).
On 9 October 2005 Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen ('Graf' is the German for the title 'Count' or 'Earl') Bishop of Münster, Germany, was beatified in Rome. In July and August 1941 he gave three sermons in his cathedral that were highly critical of the Nazi regime. These were printed and distributed widely, though illegally, in Germany. These sermons led to the nickname by which he became known: 'The Lion of Münster'. Among the aspects of Nazi practices that the bishop condemned was its euthanasia programme, begun on 1 September 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland, starting a new world war. Between then and August 1941 around 70,000 had been murdered, mostly persons with learning disabilities and mental illnesses. More than 200,000 of these persons were murdered before World War II ended in 1945.
Some of the countries that Germany invaded in that war have since legalised euthanasia, including the Netherlands and Belgium. The number of such killings in Belgium has grown from 235 in 2002 to 2,357 in 2018. This country which was staunchly Catholic Christian less than 100 years ago has allowed the euthanasia of children since 2014. Last Wednesday the Irish Parliament approved of the first stage of a bill to legalise euthanasia. The second stage will take place a year from now. The bill is known as the Dying with Dignity Bill. As with all anti-life, pro-killing legislation it is given a nice-sounding name to cover up the reality that it would turn compliant medical personnel into executioners of the old and sick, as they are already executioners of children in the womb.
In his Angelus address on the day of the beatification of Blessed Clemens August, Pope Benedict said: The three famous homilies that this intrepid Pastor gave in 1941 are remarkable. Pope Pius XII created him Cardinal in February 1946 and he died barely a month later, surrounded by the veneration of the faithful who recognized him as a model of Christian courage.
For this very reason, the message of Blessed von Galen is ever timely: faith cannot be reduced to a private sentiment or indeed, be hidden when it is inconvenient; it also implies consistency and a witness even in the public arena for the sake of human beings, justice and truth.
Voters, especially in Western countries, are now faced with a moral dilemma. In the parliamentary constituency in which I live here in Ireland we elect three representatives to the Dáil (Parliament), known as Teachtaí Dála (TDs). The then three TDs voted in November 2018 to legalise abortion, on demand up to 12 weeks and in limited circumstances after that. I could not in conscience vote for any of them in the general election last February. Most TDs are baptised and confirmed Catholics and few, if any, are openly hostile to the Christian faith or to the Catholic church. But for so many of us Catholics and other Christians, including regular churchgoers, faith has been reduced to a private sentiment and hidden when it is inconvenient. One direct consequence of this is that last year 6,666 unborn children were legally denied entry to the Republic of Ireland by being aborted, by virtue of a law that came into effect on New Year's Day 2019, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. I wonder how many Catholics in Ireland are conscious of the perversity of this.
I have written about Fr Emil Kapaun, a priest of the Dioceseof Wichita, Kansasn, now being proposed for beatification, a number of times. He served as a chaplain in the US Army in both World War II and the Korea War where he died in captivity after serving his fellow POWs heroically, living his vocation as a priest to the fullest.
In a broadcast in Japan on 21 April 1950 Fr Kapaun said: We can be sure to expect that in our own lives there will come a time when we must make a choice between being loyal to the true faith or of giving allegiance to something else which is either opposed to or not in alliance with our faith. He spoke these words just a little over two months before the Korean War began and 13 months before his own death.
In the parable today Jesus extends God's invitation to all of us to the heavenly banquet, which begins here on earth. As in the parable, it is possible for us to reject that invitation.
The choice is ours.
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Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
This Sunday, 11 September, is the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost in the calendar that uses the TLM. The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-11-2020, if necessary).
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The Month of the Rosary
Authentic Beauty
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
Pope Benedict XVI meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel, 21 November 2009.
