From the responsorial psalm: “I will fulfill my vows before those who fear him. The lowly shall eat their fill; they who seek the LORD shall praise him: “May your hearts be ever merry!” I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke (Lk 14:15-24)
One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.”
As in yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus is at a banquet held by a leading religious figure. Jesus responds to the statement of the guest who sits next to him with a parable. The great banquet Jesus describes represents God’s invitation to Israel and their rejection of it, but it also speaks to the rejection by Gentiles and all other people who receive and reject the invitation because of attachment to their possessions. When the master hears from the servant that his invitation is rejected, he becomes angry and asks that the servant go out to all the surroundings to invite “the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame” so that “people come in that my home may be filled.” Just as those in the parable are invited, Jesus invites each of us from every station in life to dine in his kingdom.
God, it is true what the guest at the banquet said: “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” Jesus knows the hearts of people and the reasons why they excuse themselves from following him, and so he shares the parable. Yet, let me consider how St. Paul describes the necessity to put aside attachments and follow: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.” Jesus also knows the limits of what we can perceive. Lord, give me the grace to follow Jesus in his humility, in his self-emptying, and in his obedience to your will so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
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