THE FEAST, BANQUET OF LOVE.
October 11, 2020
Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time - A.
A Kikuyu proverb says, “Every feast has its guest of honor.”
And a Greek proverb adds, “Is appallingly poor, the heart that never rejoices.”
Some people live as if life was all about desolation, tears,
mourning. They seem to never find a reason in life or something to rejoice
about and laugh. Starting from the external appearance, they always arbor the
‘Good Friday’ face, without any hope of ‘Easter Sunday’, what Pope Francis,
inviting to be joyful Christians, calls the syndrome of the gloomy face.
In today’s liturgy, the first reading and the gospel join
into one to invite us to rejoice. We are summoned at the banquet of happiness.
The Kingdom of God is described as a place, or more, as an event of great joy.
God’s kingdom is actually, more than a geographical location. It is an event
that is to come and which is already here. It is an already and not yet feast
of love and joy. And that feast will consecrate our real vocation, people
called to happiness, to rejoice and celebrate love.
The Prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, foresees this
event. He, therefore, announces that, on His Holy Mountain, the Mountain of His
love, the Lord will prepare a great feast and wipe away tears from all faces.
We are obviously, invited at that feast, a celebration of joy and not at a
funeral parlor made of tears and jeremiads.
The Holy Eucharist, our celebrations, are the already
present event, a prefiguration of that feast. The Eucharist, thus, is a moment
of great joy where God is made one in all and for all. It is regrettable that
some Eucharistic celebrations are not far away from funeral masses. Our
Eucharistic thanksgivings in some aspects look like ‘funeral party’, sad and
joyless. So many masses are filled with an expression of hopelessness, sorrows,
silent mourning, and songs of desolation, as if Jesus whom we celebrate was
dying again and again.
In the present situation resulting from the COVID-19
pandemic, maybe because of the wearing of mask and face shield, many masses, in
some places, are turned into a silent oration and our Eucharist is little by
little losing its meaning of the feast. Many people are more passive than
active at mass, making of the feast something sadder than a normal funeral
could be. Some people sing the glory of God with a silent voice and the
Alleluia, instead of being an acclamation turns to be a lamentation session. In
all these changes due to the ‘New Normal’, the saddest situation to which we
are confronted are the existential questions people put today: where is God in
this present situation of the pandemic? What does he say about the COVID-19?
Why has he permitted this to happen?
As Christians, we can find a glimpse of the answer to our
questions and even a reason to celebrate despite the happenings, only if we
reach the awareness of God’s presence. That is, notwithstanding the sanitary,
social, and human crises, God is still with us. He has not forsaken us. This
awareness calls for creativity to redefine our celebrations and root ourselves
in God’s actions in us.
The prophecy of Isaiah, in that sense, becomes a call to
such awareness. That is, even though we go through tough situations,
tribulations, and trials, even though the pandemic confines us to live as
exiled in our own houses, keeping a distance from each other because of the
love we owe each other, time will still come for feasting and rejoicing. The
Lord “will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over
all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord GOD will wipe away the
tears from every face…” Can we read from these words a prophecy for us today?
The pandemic will not last forever. The time will come for us to rejoice. Our
tears and gloomy faces will anew be illuminated with joy.
What Isaiah saw prophetically, is in some ways fulfilled
through the parable Jesus gives in the Gospel. God, the great King, offers a
banquet to which he summons all, a marriage feast for all. Does any normal
being go to a feast wearing funeral clothes or weeping? With Jesus with us, the
banquet has already begun. Yet, many people are unwilling to take part in that
feast. We live in a world and in societies where hatreds, divisions, wars,
pandemics, political and social crises, arise day after day, taking away from
man all signs of joy. All these things happen, foremost, because many refuses
the joy Jesus calls us to celebrate.
The parable of the gospel clearly expresses this refusal.
Human beings, with their freedom, choose whether or not to adhere to God's
covenant of love. However, it is not just about this open rebellion or
opposition to the will of God, symbolized by those who find thousands of
excuses not to come, but also the silent rebellion. Here comes the contrasting
note in the Gospel. Among those who accepted to enter the banquet hall, one had
not the proper garment. The Lord expresses here, the inner battle of man against
God’s will. We read in fact, that when the King entered the ballroom, he
noticed one of the guests not having the wedding garment. This little detail
tells us that, it is not enough to say ‘Yes’ to God’s invitation, we should
also put on the attitude of the ‘Yes’. That is, it is not enough to be a
churchgoer of Christian by word. We should also live as Christians, concrete
acts of love.
The unique dress-code to the feast of God’s love is nothing
else than love. For, the covenant of love cannot be sealed with something else
than love, not with words. The feast has already begun. We are already in. But
then, are we all well-disposed to love as we are loved? St. Paul, in the second
reading, will tell us that we can only truly love through him who loved us.
Based on his own experience, Paul says, “I can do all things in him who
strengthens me.” It is only in Jesus and through Jesus that we can correspond
to God’s love. For, he is the one who strengthens us to love and accept to be
loved. Without Jesus, we are unworthy guests at God's feast of love because of
our sins.
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