Aug 18, 2022
No exclusion in God's kingdom
But we should join his project with all our imperfections
Today’s gospel has an interesting parable with a complicated ending. The invited guests didn't turn up for the wedding feast; the master told the servants to invite people from the streets; but some of them were thrown out as they didn't have wedding garments. If we don’t understand the context, we can imagine the master as a cruel one, who threw the poor guests whom he invited for lack of wedding garments; and we might ask, how on earth, these poor people have wedding garments.
Pope Francis enlightens on this, and I find it short, crisp and to the point. I can't do it any better, so i quote him fully..
This is how God reacts: when he is rejected, rather than giving up, he starts over and asks that all those found at the thoroughfares be called, excluding no one. No one is excluded from the house of God. (…) However, the Lord places one condition: to wear a wedding garment. Let us return to the parable. When the hall is full, the king arrives and greets the latest guests, but he sees one of them without a wedding garment, that kind of little cape that each guest received as a gift at the entrance. The people went as they were dressed, as they were able to dress; they were not wearing gala attire. But they were given a type of capelet, a gift, at the entrance. That man, having rejected the free gift, excluded himself: thus, the king could do nothing but throw him out. This man accepted the invitation but then decided that it meant nothing to him: he was a self-sufficient person; he had no desire to change or to allow the Lord to change him. The wedding garment — this capelet — symbolizes the mercy that God freely gives us, namely, grace. Without grace we cannot take a step forward in Christian life. Everything is grace. It is not enough to accept the invitation to follow the Lord; one must be open to a journey of conversion, which changes the heart.
There is another complicated phrase in the gospel, which says that all the sins will be forgiven, but not the one against the Holy Spirit. I hope the above interpretation of Pope Francis gives us clues to interpret that line too.
