OMELIE / Omelie EN

15 ott 2023

15/10/2023 - 28th Sunday in O. T. - year A

15/10/2023 - 28^th Sunday in O. T. - year A

Reading 1 IS 25,6-10 Psalm 22 Reading 2 PHIL 4,12-14.19-20 Gospel MT 22,1-14

Jesus tells another parable about the kingdom. Actually, this is a double parable, addressed not to the crowds and neither to His disciples. They did not need it. This is addressed to “the chief priests and elders of the people”, to the people who were responsible for the people of Israel.

Jesus certainly remembered Isaiah's prophecy we heard in the first reading. God promises a special feast for everyone, even for all peoples, for the Pagans too then. God loves all men and wants salvation for them, the salvation giving joy, filling and fulfilling everyone’s life. The image He chose is, in fact, a feast: for us, who are satisfied with everything, the word feast does not mean much: but we can imagine what could have meant for people who did not have anything and had to live every day by rationing even the bread.

How do the chiefs of the people factor in? They are the ones who, often, have stopped the Word of God from reaching the ears of the people, they are the ones who have silenced, using disinterest and persecution, the different prophets who were advising to obey God and be just towards the poor and the oppressed. They need to realise the evil they are promoting by stopping Jesus from talking and the crowd from listening to Him.

He is the Son who, after many others have been sent, mistreated or killed by the leaders, is sent last by the Father: after Him, no one else is there to be sent by God. If He is rejected by the people too, the invitation to join the feast will be addressed to others, to the poor in the streets, “bad and good alike”.

Jesus annouces in this way His own death, for which the chiefs will be responsible, and He prophetises the Pagans’ conversion to Him, even that of the ones who have not yet come to know the ten commandments of God, so they are “bad”.

Jesus wants to leave them with another teaching, and this in particular to His disciples, the Church. Those, even the “bad” who accept God’s invitation and accept to celebrate the Son’s wedding, need to be careful anyway. They will need to make sure they are wearing the wedding garments.

This is a very important warning: it is easy to look for Jesus because of the feelings that life with Him can give, or because of the satisfaction coming from the gratification of being together with others, or of being good from having personal goodness. Those who think they are Christians by living like this are promoting themselves, they do not enjoy and do not prioritise the importance of the wedding above everything, so the love of the Son of the King. The ones who can really enjoy God’s invitation are those who let themselves be enveloped by Him, those who accept to be saved by Jesus.

The person refusing to wear the wedding garments is he who thinks he has the right to be at the feast thanks to his goodness, his ability to follow the commandments, thanks to his virtues.

The wedding garment, needed in order to enjoy God’s invite and love, is the humility to accept to be part of Jesus’s death, to carry the cross with Him. The people who do not have this garment, which is reflecting the groom’s love, are the people who do not join in the mystery of Jesus’s death and resurrection through the Baptism, the people who do not let themselves be recognised as own by Jesus: they will not be able to be part of His Church, will not be allowed to be at the table with Him and receive the benefits of the communion with His people.

The wedding garments are a undeserved gift. The people wearing them are grateful, they know they have always to thank God who has loved them, called, forgiven, welcomed them and has given them the gift of being able to love. They will be humble in front of everyone, because they have nothing of theirs which deserves what they have received and still receive.

The people wearing the wedding garments enjoy the love of the person who invited them and do not need anything else: they could say, like Saint Paul, “I know how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I can do all things in him who strengthens me”. The joy of the Christian are not the goods of earth, and their lacking is not sad for him, because he takes part in the wedding feast of the King’s Son, takes part in the Lord’s cross, in the fullness of His love!