If you're happy and you know it clap your hands, if you're happy and you know it clap your hands; if you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're happy and you know it clap your hands!
What makes us happy? Did LSU's miraculous win last night make you happy? Will you be happy if the Saints turn it around and have a great season? Hey, by the way, at least they can't lose today!!! Being in love, having dear wonderful friends, perhaps a great job, the birth of a child and even a grandchild; all these things and more can make us happy!
Are we happy to be at Mass today? No, I mean are we really happy to be at Mass today? If you're happy to be at Mass today, clap your hands!
As people of faith, we are called to be happy every time we are invited to a great banquet, a great feast; the Super of the Lamb!
Today Jesus gives us another difficult parable in Matthew's Gospel. We remember that Matthew is writing this Gospel some 30 or 40 years after the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus for a predominately Jewish audience. Like many did at the time of condemning Jesus to die, the Jewish leadership was still rejecting the message and teaching of Jesus decades later. Jesus knew this would be the case so he gives us this parable. The invited guests rejected the invitation to the banquet, both because they truly were busy and had things to do but also because they just did not seem to care. In fact we hear in the Gospel that they mistreated and even killed those sent to deliver the invitation to come. How sad that the invitation is both rejected and met with such a horrific response. So the king calls all to come, the Gospel says both the good and the bad are gathered. They came, and among them would be the common and ordinary as well as tax collectors, sinners, harlots and worse. Still they came.
Why did they come? Did they come for the food? Did they come to feel important? Did some come simply because they were invited and they were happy to participate in the feast? All of a sudden we hear of the king pointing out one at the banquet without a wedding garment, he came unprepared and was summarily thrown out.
You and I have been invited to the greatest of feasts, the best of banquets: The Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Do we come happy? Do we come ready to celebrate? Do we come ready to feast on the choice, juicy rich fare of the Precious Body & Blood of Our Lord Jesus? There is no greater banquet; no better feast. So I ask again, do we come with our wedding garment? What is our wedding garment? We are called to put on our wedding garment when we come to Mass and when we encounter our brothers and sisters everyday. That wedding garment is charity, forgiveness, love and mercy. That is what we are called to put on and to not just wear it but be it in our everyday existence. Wear charity, forgiveness, love and mercy by being charity, forgiveness, love and mercy. Come to Mass happy, with a spirit of joy, and live every day happy and full of joy.
Harken back to your Baptism, or that of your children and God-children and the gift of the white garment. We say these words at the presentation of the white garment: You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ! See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. And bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven!
This week, can we all examine our own heart to understand fully what is my response to the invitation? Can I say that I come to mass happy, joyful and prepared? Can I say that I live my life, all week long, with that same attitude at Mass of happiness, joy and prepared to be Christ for others? In the week ahead, can we pray everyday, in addition to our regular prayers, the 23rd Psalm, which we prayed together today? Can we let those words of the 23rd Psalm, and the words of this Gospel, fill us with charity, forgiveness, love and mercy and happiness and joy too?
If you're happy and you know clap your hands! If you're happy and you know that this is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know that you can put on your wedding garment, which is Christ; charity, forgiveness, love and mercy, clap your hands!
Be more than invited; be chosen; and that's happy and you know it!
No comments:
Post a Comment