For many of us to eat is more than to satisfy necessity. It is a social act, a time to rest, an occasion to enjoy a good moment. In the banquets at the time of the first reading this was even truer. Music, drinks, dances... This is good to keep in mind in the readings today.
Banquets where (and should be today) a transition between work and rest, a transition between what we should do and what we would like to do.
Something that grabs our attention in the first reading is that "On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples. The web that is woven over all nations" (Isaiah 25; 7). It seems than it is a banquet of revelations.
It will be a moment when veils will be taken from all nations. The problem is that we never associate eating with receiving special revelation. It is more understandable when we know the context of the banquets with kings. The people who where there could not see the king from a long distance and that was the only chance to have an image of the king stored in their memory like a treasure.
God will reveal himself in His banquet. He is the king that we are waiting for, the one that we always want to contemplate, the one we always want to know, the realization that everything He promised is true. All of this is even tastier than all the food, even more amazing is that it all happens at the same time of the banquet.
Why wouldn’t everyone want to go to the banquet?
The gospel takes the same idea with a little difference. For some reason the ones who were invited weren't interested in going, even though it was the king's banquet. Isn't that absurd? But is it less absurd to be negative in accepting the love of the God that invites... The other thing we see is that it seems that the excuses they made for not going are the result of a satisfaction with what they had. And that's the problem. The satisfied people don’t want to eat.
The conclusion could be that the call to the kingdom, to the banquet, requires unsatisfied people, people who hunger and have a need to be full.
Dear Lord, grant me the grace to value heaven and to live in such away that I can get there. Jesus, so many times I give more importance to my own satisfaction than to centering my attention and efforts on achieving true communion with you. Help me to value your invitation to reach heaven through a truly Christian life that prefers virtue to sin, disinterested love to selfishness, and humility to pride. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment