Come to the Wedding

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Deprive a camel of water for a week, and you would see the poor thirsty creature race to the nearest drinking hole to get its first sip of water. One would imagine that after three months of lockdown and being deprived of the Eucharist for the longest time imaginable, many Catholics would be rushing back for Mass and clamour to get a taste of the Eucharist. But this was not so. It began with a slow trickle and then the numbers plateaued. Ironically, those who really wanted to return were told to wait - the high-risk members of our community, the elderly. Many were willing to risk infection and even death in order to get a taste of the Eucharist but were told to be patient and to wait until it was safer to return. And here’s the other irony. Just as we have gradually made allowance for the elderly to return with extra precautions, we are seeing a second surge which has resulted in another suspension of Masses in the Klang Valley. Back to watching live-streamed Masses and spiritual communion. That is Murphy’s Law for you.

My fear is that with this second shut down of churches and suspension of public Masses, this may be the final nail hammered into the coffin of many Catholics who no longer feel any urge or see any need to return for Mass. There is a likelihood that when we finally decide to reopen, few would heed the call to return for Mass. Sounds very much like today’s parable.

The Lord compares the kingdom of Heaven to a king who gave a wedding banquet in honour of his son. Those who were invited refused the invitation. He sent out other servants a second time with special instructions to say: "I have my banquet all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding.” But they took the invitation lightly. Many just gave light reasons to excuse themselves from the banquet.

It is easy to make a connexion between the wedding feast and the Eucharist, given the similar scenario we are facing - many have been invited but few have heeded the call. But the parable points to something bigger - the Heavenly Banquet. Heaven is, of course, the ultimate prize. Yes, it is a great opportunity to get back to attend Mass but our ultimate hope is directed to our perfect, eternal fulfillment — to heaven, that is. And in a way, there is a connexion to the Eucharist because the Eucharist is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, or as St John Chrysostom beautifully puts it, “heaven on earth.” So how we respond to this earthly invitation to participate in Mass, is ultimately connected to our response to God’s invitation to participate in His heavenly banquet. If you want to get to heaven, start by coming for Mass.

Many who have chosen to stay away have done so for valid reasons. After making a risk assessment as it should be, they have decided to avoid the crowds, at least for now. But others I guess have few, if no good reasons at all to stay away. We are reminded of the guests in today’s parable. They took the invitation lightly. Now, it's not that they had some other pressing matter. No, they simply had their priorities wrong. They gave little value to the king’s invitation. Other matters, even the most trivial, seem more important. Their sin was their indifference to God's call to live for Him, to make Him their chief end in life, not themselves.

I believe that one of the major reasons why people take lightly the invitation of the Lord is because they have little appreciation of the value of heaven and little understanding of the horrors of hell. When you lack appreciation or understanding of an object, it holds little appeal for you. That is why it is important to remember that today’s parable is a parable of judgment, a parable which addresses the importance of decisions, decisions with eternal consequences.  A decision whether to attend Mass or not, is not just a trivial matter which has little consequences. On the contrary, our decision has dire consequences – it points to our ultimate destiny and end. We are either setting out a path for heaven or for hell.  Hell is an eternal state of alienation from the vision of God and Heaven is an eternal banquet given in honour of Christ.

Our eternal salvation is not about being a nice guy. If being a nice guy was sufficient to get to heaven, we would be making a mockery of the lives and deaths of the great martyrs of the Church throughout the centuries who suffered much and sacrificed their lives for the sake of the salvation of souls of future generations. The standard by which all of us will be judged will be the love that appears to us from the cross. Heeding our Lord’s invitation means following Him on the path to the cross. Our Lord reminds us that the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to perdition and those who enter through it are many, but how narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to eternal life, and those who find it are few (Mt 7, 13-14).

But it is not only a lack of appreciation for heaven and hell which may lead to our ruin. What condemns us is our utter ignorance of the true value of the Eucharist. The food that will be served at the wedding banquet, the fattened calf that was sacrificed, is none other than the Bread of Life, Christ Himself, which is the food that is given at every Mass. And that is why it is so important to spend the rest of our lives disposing ourselves towards the Bread of Life and to hunger for it continually. We cannot live without the Eucharist.

It is understandable that many have decided to stay away because the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation have been temporarily suspended during this time of pandemic. As Catholics, we all know that attendance at Mass every Sunday and on holy days of obligation is an obligation rooted in God’s commandments and Church law, but we have to get to the point where it is no longer an obligation. Please don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say here. I am not suggesting that this rule should be reformed. Rather, I am saying that we have to get to the point where we simply cannot miss Mass because our hunger for it is so great, it's no longer an external law outside of us, but has become an interior law, compelling us from within, just as hunger propels us to eat in order to live.

It is true that none of you are momentarily able to attend Mass until the risk of transmission is brought under control. But when public Masses resume, many of you may not be able to return right away. You might need to exercise caution for yourself or those you love. You might need to keep watching from a distance for a while. But when the time is right, it is my prayer that you can and must, gather again with the people of God. After all, every Mass is ultimately a taste of heaven. Scripture’s vision of heaven doesn’t look like a quarantine, a livestream, or a Zoom call. It’s a “face to face” encounter with the Risen Christ and a reunion with the saints and the angels. In the life to come, we won’t be socially distanced and segregated in mansions of glory, but living and working and loving and serving together in a new world where righteousness dwells. So, once we know it’s safe, wise, and no disservice to our communities, let’s gather together again in person and continue to do so until the Lord gathers us again on His mountain, where He will prepare for us a banquet of rich food and fine wines, where He will remove the mourning veil and destroy Death forever, where He will wipe away the tears from every cheek and take away our shame. Indeed, we will acknowledge Him as “our God, in whom we hoped for salvation; the Lord is the one whom we hoped.”