Sunday Reflections

In 1983, I was driving back to Canada, midway through Ohio on I-75, coming back from visiting my father in Louisville, who was dying of colon cancer, when I broke down in uncontrollable crying.  I pulled over onto the highway shoulder and just let my emotions flow. When all had subsided, I asked myself how I was going to prepare for my dad’s death. Besides working on my father’s funeral Mass and the other arrangements, I thought that one of the best ways was to work on my own funeral.  All life has an expiry date on earth, and I needed to face my own.  I bring this up because the first reading from Isaiah this Sunday is the first reading for my funeral Mass – whenever that will be.  I chose it because of the image of the eternal banquet. I have always loved food and cooking. Food, I know, has the power to celebrate relationships, soothe hurting spirits, nourish the body and be a powerful image of how God takes care of his children.  But you cannot eat with an enemy – only friends.

The gospel story presents us with another image of a banquet. Those who were invited to the wedding found all kinds of excuses not to attend.  To spite them, the king hit the streets to invite anyone he could round up. The puzzling end to this story is that one of the secondary guests showed up without the appropriate garb. That was a no-no.  A recent poll seems to indicate that some 70 percent of Roman Catholics do not believe in the real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  That would explain why so many come to Mass – if they come at all – without their hearts being clothed with the right spirit, with the proper wedding garment. To think that we are receiving the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of all things, the center of the universe, the complete embodiment of love, should bring any one of us to our knees.  Indeed, we are not worthy; yet God chooses us in love and makes us worthy.

We need to find a balance in our spiritual life anytime we enter into the presence of God. It is a call to simultaneously be aware of our unworthiness to face God and, at the same time, to let ourselves be held in the love of God’s hands. Then, we can pray with our psalmist: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”