August 20
Saint
Bernard, Abbot
and Doctor of the Church
Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14
Today's Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14
(The Parable of the Wedding Feast)
Jesus again in reply spoke to them in parables,
saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to
summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time
he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared
my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready;
come to the feast.” Some ignored the invitation and
went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his
servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his
troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his
servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to
come.” Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever
you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found,
bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king
came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding
garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants,
‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there
will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Reflection:
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is the man history
remembers for the Memorare, one of the most beloved prayers ever written to Our
Lady: Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that
anyone who fled to thy protection was left unaided. He wrote and preached
constantly about her, calling her the aqueduct through which every grace flows
down from heaven to us.
That image fits today's Gospel almost perfectly. The king doesn't wait for
worthy guests to show up on their own. He sends servants out into the highways
to gather absolutely everyone they can find, good and bad alike, because the
marriage feast has to be filled and nobody was ever going to earn their way to
that invitation. Bernard saw Mary functioning the same way in the life of grace,
not the source of it, but the channel God chose to bring it down to people who
could never have reached it on their own.
The only guest turned away in the parable is the one who came in without the
wedding garment, without, the Fathers of the Church say, the humility and
charity that has to clothe a soul before grace can do its work. Bernard's whole
devotion to Mary was really about that: asking her to help clothe him properly
before the King arrived.
If the invitation to the feast has already gone out to absolutely
everyone, what's still keeping you from walking in?
Rosary Man
Jim 🌹
Freely
given. Freely shared.
