SUNDAY 11 OCTOBER 2020

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)

GOSPEL: St Matthew 22:1-14: PARABLE OF THE WEDDING BANQUET: ‘Many are called but few are chosen’


In today’s Gospel, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a royal wedding banquet. Just as there are invited guests to the banquet in the parable, we, God’s children, are invited guests in His kingdom, through the sacrament of Baptism. We are all familiar with receiving invitations of one sort or another. An invitation is not a demand: we can accept or decline. Even in accepting, we can make a choice – to accept half-heartedly or to enter into the spirit, purpose and joy of it. Today’s parable calls us to reflect on the quality of our response to God’s invitation to us: does it reflect a positive yes to the building of His kingdom? Is it sometimes half-hearted, reflecting the response of the man in the second part of today’s parable, who attended the wedding banquet but did not wear a wedding garment?
We pray today that the quality of our ‘yes’ to God’s invitation will be such that it will inspire others in their response and, one day, having played an active part in building His kingdom, we will be invited guests in God’s heavenly banquet.