Gospel Commentary: Can We Lose Our Place at the Lord's Banquet?

By Fr. John Riley
^{HERALD Columnist}

Can we lose our place at the wedding feast? We hear in this Sunday’s Gospel reading Christ’s disturbing answer to the question. As the latter portion of Matthew’s Gospel unfolds, we see Jesus arriving in Jerusalem and speaking to the crowds during Holy Week. Facing off against the hypocritical rigidity of the Scribes and Pharisees, and the liberal laxity of the Sadducees and their agents, Our Lord makes it clear to the people of Israel that salvation is not to be found in either "camp." Being an Israelite does not guarantee a person a place in the Kingdom [any more than being baptized a Catholic does].

In this week’s parable, Jesus describes the great wedding banquet prepared by the King. The invited guests respond — with apathy and indifference. They refuse the invitation. A second group of servants are sent to bring them in. These are insulted, abused and killed. After the King passes a harsh judgment on those murderers, he dispatches another fleet of servants to round up rogues and wanderers on the highways and byways and to bring them in to the feast. One fellow brought in from the roads is not properly dressed. The King, noticing his lack of preparation, commands that he be bound "hand and foot" and thrown out into the night "to wail and grind his teeth." One is inclined to doubt that he lived "happily ever after."

What point is our Lord trying to get across to His listeners? On the streets of Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago, the crowds clearly understood that Jesus was condemning the arrogance and indifference of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In our present day, Jesus’ indictment may well be leveled at factions and camps, which hamper the harmony and disturb the unity of His Sacred Banquet — the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Across the spectrum of special interest groups which have formed at the close of the second millennium is an array of agendas which focus on externals and surface trappings, and tend to lose sight of the substance and reality of what takes place when we gather at the altar. People become obsessed with their preferences for bells or banners, incense or altar girls. They dwell on "urgent" questions about the "best" type of vestments [silk?…burlap?…], the "holiest" music [Gregorian chant?…folk melodies?], the placement of liturgical furniture [is the "presider’s chair better placed in the center of the sanctuary or on the side?]. Such trivialities occupy and distract minds and hearts which should be focused on the bread and wine on the altar, which become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, Who we receive in Holy Communion.

Are we missing the Banquet because we’re caught up with non-essentials? There are Catholics who refuse to attend Mass because they feel the priest is too "liberal," and others who absent themselves because they don’t like the "Novus Ordo" [the "New Mass" which is more than 30 years old at this writing]. Some people arrive at the banquet ill prepared and improperly disposed to receive Holy Communion because they maintain that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is "pre-Vatican II" and so haven’t been to confession in years.

We are still called to the Banquet — all of us! The gift Our Lord wishes to give us there surpasses anything we could ever hope to receive in this life. There are those who would prefer to have us outside of the banquet, in their dark company, wailing and grinding our teeth. We should pray for the grace to avoid fixations on externals or accidentals which steer us away from the heart of the Holy Sacrifice, and ask God for the single-sightedness to participate fully in the Sacred Banquet where Christ is received, our souls are filled with grace and we receive a pledge and foretaste of the glorious wedding banquet of the Lamb. Amen.

Fr. Riley is parochial vicar at St. John Parish in Warrenton.

Copyright ©1999 Arlington Catholic Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.