Readings:
• Isa 25:6-10a
• Psa 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
• Phil 4:12-14, 19-20
• Matt 22:1-14
It is impossible to overstate the importance of marriage as both an institution and a metaphor in the Bible.
Marriage is depicted as a sacred bond in which a man and woman enter into a covenantal, nuptial bond and the “two of them become one body” (Gen 2:24). The relationship between God and his people is often depicted as a marriage, especially in the writings of the Old Testament prophets.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, “Seeing God’s covenant with Israel in the image of exclusive and faithful married love, the prophets prepared the Chosen People’s conscience for a deepened understanding of the unity and indissolubility of marriage” (par 1611).
Many of the prophets—especially Isaiah and Ezekiel—wrote of a future time when God would finally free his people from oppression and suffering, and culminate his covenantal love in a joyful marriage feast. Today’s Old Testament reading is from a section known as “the apocalypse of Isaiah” (Isa 24-27), which describes the coming of God to destroy the enemies of his people and deliver, once and for all, Israel from the forces of evil. Isaiah described a “feast of rich food and choice wines” on Mount Zion in which “all peoples” partake; nations are united and all sorrow has ceased.
This is the same wedding feast described by John the Revelator in his Apocalypse: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory. For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready (Rev 19:7ff).
However, in between the Old Testament prophecies and the future fulfilment there is the here and now. Yes, the kingdom is here, but has not yet been fulfilled and completed; the King has come, but has yet to come again in glory for all the world to see and acknowledge as King of kings (Rev 19:11-21).
The kingdom, Jesus told the chief priests and elders, is like a king who “gave a wedding feast for his son.” This invitation was not just a matter of social interest for Jews, but of immense responsibility. Those invited to such a marriage feast made certain their calendar was clear and that they attended. Failure to do so was not just a grave insult, but grounds for severe punishment. It was common for two invitations to be sent: the first to let guests know of the approaching marriage; the second on the cusp of the celebration, which would usually last a full week.
The guests in the parable, however, were indifferent or, even worse, hostile to the servants delivering the invitation. Those who were indifferent, wrote St. Gregory the Great, were caught up in worldly activities. “One person is concerned with earthly toil”, he wrote, “another devoted to the business of this world. Neither takes notice of the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation.” And, he adds, “They are unwilling to live in accordance with it.”
The first guests are the people of Israel, blessed with the witness of the prophets, yet mostly unmoved by their message, if not openly antagonistic to it. The angry king—who is, of course, God—destroyed their city, a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70.
The invitation to the marriage feast is then extended to whomever the servants can find, a reference to the apostles preaching to the Gentiles. The new Israel, the Church, is aptly described as containing “bad and good alike”. But those who think all goes well at this point are in for a surprise. The king angrily questions a guest who is without a “wedding garment”, and then casts the speechless man into “the darkness outside”. Indifference, again, is a problem, but the deeper issue is that of unworthiness.
Many are called, but it is those who are faithful, filled with charity, “holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27; cf Matt 7:21), who are chosen. The marriage supper of the Lamb awaits, but we must be clothed with “righteous deeds” (Rev 9:8).
(This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in the October 9, 2011, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
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In the Gospel : Matthew 22:1-14
God is like a king who invites us to a banquet. Many refused their invitation so his slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so, the wedding hall was filled with guests.
‘The anonymous guest, someone from “the main highways,” perhaps homeless, almost certainly destitute, where was such a one to come on a festive robe?
If we transfer this statement onto the spiritual plane, it could be said the homeless and destitute are those who have lost their home (Church) and are ensnared in evil situations and need spiritual help now, in the present moment.
I was about twelve years old when I first recollected hearing this parable, but could not understand how not having a wedding garment could result in such harsh dealings with the individual concerned, which caused me a great deal of distress and anxiety at the time, as I took the parable given by Jesus at face value, thinking possible he had no way of providing himself with one and so I could not understand this cruelty.
About fifty years later I read somewhere on the internet, of the Jewish custom at the beginning of the first century AD, of the Father of the groom providing wedding garments free of charge for the invited guests, so I now realise that those who originally heard this parable would have known instantly that the custom of the day was that the wedding garment was provided ‘free’ of charge, and had to be worn no matter how well one’s own apparel may be, dignitaries, etc. would conform to this custom as did those with poor apparel, not to do so would be an affront to the Bridegroom.
This garment also created equality (mutual respect) amongst the guests.
I now believe that the name of this garment is humility; we can deduce this because we are told that one of the guests had no garment, to those hearing this parable they would have instantly concluded that he was arrogant, by refusing to wear the free customary garment of compliance offered to him.
He wanted to be accepted on his own terms, as he was, in his own/self-image (ego). He was gagged, (his opinion no longer able to contradict (offend) God), his stance so offensive that he was bound hand and foot and thrown into the darkness never to be able to repeat the same action again.
This reflection has drawn me back to the original time when I first heard the parable. It appears that my prayer and anxiety at the time, concerning the individual who had been thrown out, gagged, bound hand and foot, into the darkness, had now been answered, as I now understood the parable. Also I had been given the means, The True Image of Divine Mercy an image of Broken Man, to play my part to draw anyone who cannot take part in His Wedding Feast (Holy Communion) to come in from the darkness unfettered, dressed in humility and partake of His table.
The core of the ongoing challenge in all of the gospels is one of spiritual enlightenment, as in “repent” ~ to change direction (the transformation of the human heart). This can only come about in wearing the wedding garment of humility, before our Father in heaven.
“The wedding garment is sanctifying grace”, (C.f. Rite of Baptism)
while only humility can ensure that we remain dressed in it.
Please consider continuing this refection on humility (St. Bernard – Humility is a virtue by which a man knowing himself as he truly is, abases himself.” See link
https://acireland.ie/amoris-laetitia-the-joy-of-love-reviewed-by-aidan-hart/#comment-10034
kevin your brother
In Christ
I agree to a point….the garment is actually the free gift of salvation…not just humility….humility is the first step towards realizing our sin and how that separates us from God, hence salvation can now accur….
The illustration for this article is the Ghent Altarpiece by the 15th-century Jan van Eyck. The Renaissance—which then “walked together” into the Enlightenment and into today’s rut (double entendre intended) of radical Secularism.
Noticed for me in a 1960s art history class (at a major secular university!) was the very center of this composition. The blood of the Lamb drains into a chalice, AND on the chalice is concretely (!) engraved one word (about the Word!): “Tueri” (“cling to this”). The REAL PRESENCE: the singular, divine, and exhaustive self-donation on Calvary, now sacramentally available in an unbloody manner across space and time (the very same but “numerically distinct”).
How different, this energized, open, and unified “roundtable” with its centerpiece, compared to the static, divided, and dispersed SYNODAL roundtables, uncentered by the Instrumentum Laboris and its backroom experts.
For more about this perspective, see a CWR article posted only yesterday, and the comments: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/10/13/dubious-papal-ressourcement-on-the-incomplete-saint-francis-of-pope-francis/
Yes, and even deeper, Carl – we are to be clothed with the Incarnate Righteous One, with Christ the NewMan of Holiness…not simply deeds, but a Person, the Incarnate God-man Himself, the Divine Wedding Garment…
In Holy Baptism the old man is taken off and the NewMan of Holiness, the Divine Bridegroom is put on – He is the Wedding Garment, we are to be ‘found clothed’ or ‘alive in’ the Bridegroom as the ‘bride branch’ to the ‘Wedding Garment Vine’, the Bridegroom. Faith and Hope are insufficient, we must be married or clothed in our Divine Bridegroom by ‘the Holy Spirit poured into our souls, hearts’, remaining, abiding, restored when disrobed by deadly and dis-communing sin.
If we are not clothed in Christ the Wedding Garment we will not be in His and our Matrimonial Feast of Heaven. Dying without being clothed in Holy Communion with the Bridegroom, we will forever remain out of Holy Communion for eternity, in Hell, where those who have taken off or disrobed themselves of Christ the Wedding Garment and put on the old man of unholy communion with sin and death, forever are in darkness, the torments of the second and eternal death, wailing, gnashing and grinding their teeth’…
It is tragic and diabolical folly not to be ‘in Christ’ being stripped of ourselves and our pleasures, being made perfect in denial of ‘the old man and his deeds in us’ so that ‘we come to decrease and disappear and Christ increases to’ ‘become and all’, and with Saint Paul, we say, and are, “no longer do I live, but Christ lives in Me”…I have put on Him who is My Wedding Garment and Feast, I will not take Him or His deeds off, rather with my Wedding Garment Christ Jesus I will run His Race ‘going from grace to grace, from one degree of glory to the next, until I arrive at the full stature and maturing of His Holiness at the Right-Hand of the Father in Glory”….
In Baptism we put off the old man and his deeds that we may with God the Holy Spirit found daily to be living our Baptism to come to be Christ, the NewMan of Holiness, in Christ, not in ourselves with the old man’s deeds, but fully in Christ in Christ with His NewMan’s deeds of holiness and righteousness, doing all things well in us, and our loved ones and each baptized disciple.
I have never heard or read of a prayer using the words “wedding garments,” until I came upon this prayer by St. Teresa of Avila:
“O My God! Source of all mercy!
I acknowledge Your sovereign power.
While recalling the wasted years that are past,
I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn
this loss to gain. Miserable as I am, yet
I firmly believe that You can do all things.
Please restore to me the time lost, the graces lost,
giving me Your grace, both now and in the future,
that I may appear before You in “wedding garments.
Amen.”
It so happened that today, Oct. 15, is the feast day of St. Teresa. She’s one of the four women doctors of the Church – the one who wears a biretta over her veil. Happy Feastday, St. Teresa!
A key message in Matthew’s Gospel is the King’s order to gather in everyone, the good as well as the bad. Much like our present pontificate. Then the major premise, A man arriving for the wedding feast without the proper attire. Ordered to be bound and cast out into the eternal darkness of Hell. Faith’s garment alone was insufficient. “It is those who are faithful, filled with charity” (Olson). Charity includes giving God his due by following his commandments [those rigid, disdainful rules spoken of in Amoris Laetitia and intermittently elsewhere].
Thank you for your authorship of God’s Covenant relationship with we, His people, Editor, Mr. Olson. May all of Catholic Holy Mass communicants recognize Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, as a glimpse of the Heavenly Feast. May we all seek to ensure our names are written in the Book of the Lamb to attend His Banquet (APOCALYPSE).
Mr. Walters, I agree we need humbly accept God’s grace. It reminds me that grace and all good things come from God.
Ms. Margarita, I savored St. Theresa of Avila’s prayer about the garment of grace.
“Amen”, Fr. Peter Morello, PhD. To join Him eternally in His Banquet, I understand that God requires we love others as we love Him and that we obey His Commandments.
October is the month of the Holy Rosary. Meditating upon our perfect role models Jesus’ and Mary’s examples, it’s consoling to recall St. Louis De Montfort claims the “predestinate” are those who are devotees of the Virgin Mother Mary (True Devotion to Mary, p.86).