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Vocation Meditation -
October 9, 2011
Once more, Jesus spoke to the chief priests and Pharisees in parables: “The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.”
“Again he sent other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: “Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.”’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
“Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore, into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Meditating on this parable one could feel the air of joy in the invitation of the king. Everyone is invited to the banquet of grace. This invitation was actually for the Jews. To Jesus, they chose not to recognize the visitation of God in their history. They missed the graced event of Jesus in their midst. They later witnessed the downfall and the destruction of their city, Jerusalem.
In a wider scale, the invitation of God to mankind is to a feast as if to a grand wedding banquet. His invitation to all is to joy. When Christians miss to respond, it is joy they miss.
The things that made people deaf to the invitation of Christ were not necessarily bad in themselves. They were valid daily life affairs like work and business concerns. It is very easy to be burdened by the ‘busy-ness’ of daily affairs that the things of eternity are forgotten. We are preoccupied with the claims of the world that the soft invitation of the voice of Christ cannot be heard. The second bests which are good, shut out the bests in life.
In the last analysis, the invitation is an invitation to grace. Those who were invited from the streets, byways and highways did not deserve to be invited. They did not even expect to be invited. All that came to them were grace, a realization that they have received the wide-armed, open-hearted, generous hospitality of the king. It was grace that invited them and it was grace that gathered them in, into the festive banquet of the King.
Vocation Challenge:
“The wedding is ready. Come to the banquet.”
What are my ‘second bests’ decisions that slow down my readiness to respond to my vocation?
Dear God,
You call me to partake of the abundant joys of your Kingdom. Yet, I also tarry long to respond. I allow myself to be lost in the labyrinths of procrastination and laziness. I now want to stand ready to partake of the feast you laid out for me: the feast of following Your call. Send me prophets and teachers to guide me along my chosen path. Amen.
For the full Gospel reading for this Sunday, visit the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops site.