Rejection of the Feast?
Today there is a great divide between countries above the 30th parallel and those below. It is almost like the table of the rich man filled with the best of foods while below the table is one who would long just to eat the scraps that fall from the feast of the rich. Above the 30th parallel we find education, food a plenty and all the opportunities to enjoy the fruit of the world. Below there is a struggle to exist, a lack of serious education and a scarcity of opportunities to develop. In the midst of this reality comes a statement that rocks the world. “The kingdom of heaven is like a marriage feast which a king made for His Son…”
From the promise of God to Abraham to the reality of the bridegroom coming to the Israelites there is the constant thought that the blessings of God would descend upon those of a particular spirit. That spirit had to do with faith and confidence in the action of a loving God. The invitation to the marriage feast is the vehicle that our Lord uses to teach a great truth. God has offered this eternal union with His Son, the bridegroom, to those whose hearts were filled with faith among the Jews. The scribes and pharisees heard the parable and understood the categories in the spiritual sense in which they were spoken.
Their response is threefold: 1) rejection due to work on the farm; 2) rejection due to a merchandise issue and 3) a rejection due to pride which kills the messengers. Why is it that men and women will reject the eternal (which they cannot see but must believe on the word of God) and choose the temporal which in the end passes? Our souls like our eyes may simply be near-sighted. We perceive the good in the present and fail to meditate upon the blessings of eternity. Our finite intellect fails to enter into the Mind that is infinite. Our Love is tainted with selfishness while God presents us with a love that is beyond our imagining.
From the rejection of the Jew the door is open for the Gentile both the good and the bad. Now the wedding feast indicates God’s universal desire which is a Catholic communion of all souls for in heaven there is no Jew or Gentile, no male or female. Our souls gather in an assembly which can do only good to one another. The good are confirmed in their desire to imitate Christ; the bad find the mercy of Christ pouring over their soul and replacing the thought of evil with the complete desire to love the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
What about those who have not the wedding garment of divine gentleness and kindness? How were they able to come to the feast without the proper dispositions. When the Father recognizes the intruders, He calls upon the attendant angels to do the job of arresting the offensive souls and binding them hand and foot. They are then cast out into the darkness of their own making. For all eternity they cannot move and they must listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth. They could have saved their souls but they turned away from God and His invitation and chose to wallow in the material world of sensual delights.
Where do we find ourselves today? Have we come to the bridegroom with our heart penitent? Do we think that there are many ways to heaven or is there one way? Jesus told us “I am the Way.” Our life must follow our decision to live for self or live for God. If we live for self the garment we create is only good to keep us from the heart’s desire: to love and live in God. If we live for God, then daily we sacrifice the material order for the spiritual good that sacrifice brings us. We live in Faith and we seek to serve God through our care of our neighbor.
In the end the banquet hall will be filled with souls that came to realize that eternity is the really real. This world is only the location of decision for God or against God. In his Paradiso Dante presents the heavenly life in an abundance of light that blinds the intellect and feeds the soul. In the nine choirs of angels the light increases more and more as one is elevated toward the source of this light and all souls cannot help but feed from the light surrounding them. They are being drawn to the heavenly marriage which appears to be a union made with the Triune God through the humanity of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity. In the end Dante gasped and said I cannot write further. The reality was incomprehensible and incommunicable. One will be left in an eternal awe.
Let us implore our Lady, the Queen of heaven and earth, to inspire us with a solid devotion to her immaculate heart to aspire to this heavenly banquet. Turn toward the saints and angels to seek their intercession for our souls to yearn and they did for the heart of Jesus. As Don Bosco would regularly remind his Salesians after a tiring day with the boys: “A Little bit of heaven will wipe out all the pain of earth.” Keep heaven in your heart, soul, and mind. You will not go wrong and you will be clothed in the wedding garment of God’s holy grace.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt, S.D.B.
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