The message for today in this parable is a simple one. Notice I said simple; I didn’t say it was easy. It shows us that this isn’t a game we are playing. God has sent an invitation to a table that everyone is welcome to come to. But just accepting the invitation isn’t enough. There is this one guy who shows up without preparing for it. All the outcasts, the undesirables, the broken, and the lame have shown up… but it’s the guy without the wedding garment that is cast out. It’s not enough to accept the call. We have to live it. Our lives have to show that we believe what we say we believe. That the Gospel is our focus, both in the time’s people can see us and when we are alone with ourselves.
Too many think that they can say “I believe” and show up at Church, and that makes them a practicing Catholic. It’s more than that. We have to mean it; we must follow it up with our actions and hearts. There has to be an interior change, one that reflects the living Christ inside of us. Our lives have to become lives of love and holiness, not that we have to be perfect, but that we have to live our lives out as imperfect people with Sacraments to help us along the way. That means confession must be a regular part of our earthly existence. Falling on our knees before Jesus, allowing Him to clothe us in righteousness, the thing we fail to do on our own.
There is a simple prayer that we were taught to say as we were in formation as Deacon, as we begin to get vested with our albs. It reminds me that the garment isn’t as much as the outside dress but is more about the interior disposition of the person who wears it. I want to leave you with that prayer today to meditate on, something that I often think about in the morning as I get dressed. “Purify me, Lord, and cleanse my heart so that, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal bliss.” That’s what the Mass dismissal is all about. Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. That simple statement reminds us each time we leave this place that we must be ready, live lives of integrity, and turn to Jesus to prepare us for the wedding feast at the end of our mortal lives.
A Homily for Thursday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2: August 18th, 2022