Some ignored the invitation

12 OCTOBER (Mt 22,1-14)

When faith is transformed into religion, then our relationship with God and with our brothers is out of phase and almost always from the true worship one passed into idolatry and impiety. All the prophetsof the Old Law denounced this phase shift. They are sent to bring back the true faith into religion, butwith little results. The human heart is too hardened so that it can receive the Word of the Lord and togive it the deference of a sincere and pure of a plain faith, without blemish. In Malachi God himself is the one who expresses the wish that the temple is closed forever. It is better a people without anyreligious practice that a people who live in perpetual illusion consuming its days in horrendous sins and then covering them with a false, lying religion, with no truth in it. This cry of God is also truetoday.

Oh, that one among you would shut the temple gates to keep you from kindling fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts; neither will I accept any sacrifice from your hands, For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name is great among the nations; And everywhere they bring sacrifice to my name, and a pure offering; For great is my name among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. But you behave profanely toward me by thinking the Lord’s table and its offering may be polluted, and its food slighted. You also say, “What a burden!” and you scorn it, says the Lord of hosts; You bring in what you seize, or the lame, or the sick; yes, you bring it as a sacrifice. Shall I accept it from your hands? says the Lord. Cursed is the deceiver, who has in his flock a male, but under his vow sacrifices to the Lord a gelding; For a great King am I, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations (Mal 1,10-14).  

The parable of today teaches us precisely this: the man is beyond religion itself and the very obedience. There is a full separation between man and his Creator and Lord. The business of man and his occupations come beforeanything else. But God never ceases to love and continues to invite. He never stops calling and never gives up.Every corner of the earth must be visited by the messengers of the Master so that all are invited. No one mustfeel left out, not called and not accepted.

Whoever receives the invitation must comply with the rules. He cannot show up in the banquet hallwithout a wedding garment. Today, just this is the invisible, imperceptible but real and true greater phase shift. You want to be the Church, but not according to God’s rules, but rather, defining your own. You want to be of the Church and of sin. You do not want to wear the dress of the Gospel, of grace, of obedience and of faithfulness to the Word. You want to be of God, but remaining in the world. You wants to abolish the justice of God, the real one, in order to live a human one of the earth and according to the flesh.

Jesus again in reply spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”‘ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

The Lord does not recognize our own justice and takes us out of the room. It is this exclusion that today peoplewant to abolish. They ask the Church to abolish it. The Church does not make the laws and the Word. The onlylegislator is the Lord and no one has the power to repeal what he has established with an eternal decree. No one. never.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints help us live of true faith.