The Lord Jesus continues to invite us into the wedding feast just like the king who planned a wedding feast for his son. We can imagine the lavish preparation, the planning, the clothes, the travel, the guest list, all for the wedding ceremony and the feast afterwards. It would be a day of great joy and happiness.

But the guests of this king did not reply or were not interested. He then repeated the invitation and sent other servants but they were too busy about other things. They even killed the servants who were sent to invite them. The king responded angrily and then went and invited people from the highways and byways, good and bad and brought them to the wedding feast.

This parable follows from the others we have heard over the last two weeks. In the context Jesus has entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and is preparing for his passion, suffering, passion and death. His parables are a warning to the Jewish elders and chief priests who reject his invitation to follow him.

The first messengers are the prophets sent in the Old Testament to prepare the way for the Messiah, for Jesus. They were often not accepted and the leaders of the people did not change their ways and respond to the invitation of the prophets. Finally, God sent his own son and Jesus warns them that they will kill him and have him put to death. Many read the image of the king destroying the murderers and burning the city as a prophecy about the future destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD.

The final invitation into the highways and byways is an invitation to the Gentile world, to the world of St. Matthew, to you and to me. We are invited to the wedding feast and into the kingdom of God.

Today we have been invited to the wedding feast to adore, worship and give thanks. At Mass, we gather for a foretaste of the wedding feast in heaven with the saints and the angels. The Eucharist looks forward to the heavenly banquet.

The prophet Isaiah gives a vision of this feast in heaven. It will like a splendid feast in heaven with rich food, fine wine, full of joy and happiness. Their death will be destroyed and every tear will be wiped from grieving faces. The sorrows and tragedies of the world will be healed and only peace will be known, an eternal peace with God the Holy Trinity, Our Blessed Lady and the saints. It is a vision of consolation and hope. Hope is the gift of God’s kingdom for which we look forward and which we offer to others.

We enter again into the dynamic movement from the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to being nourished by the bread of heaven and food of life. We can say ‘Jesus my Lord and my God. God gives me life, God lives in me’. We become ‘partakers in this sacrifice divine’ (Offertory Hymn) We can trust in the Lord just as St Paul trusted in him who saved him. He learnt how to live in a time of plenty and a time of hunger. He trusts that the Lord Jesus will strengthen him. He is the one to whom he turns in distress. We too can come and offer our prayers, our needs, our joys and sorrows, to the Lord Jesus on the cross and receive his nourishment in his Body and Blood.

The gift of holy communion is a very precious gift. We should always receive the Lord Jesus with gratitude and reverence. He is our greatest gift. It causes pain to the community when this gift is received casually or unworthily.

For St. Teresa of Avila, receiving Jesus in Holy Communion was the most important moment in the day and led to profound love of the Eucharist.

She writes, ‘[the soul] will find delight and consolation in the most Blessed Sacrament… there is no need or trial or persecution that is not easy to suffer if we begin to enjoy the delight and consolation of this sacred bread.’

We are invited to deepen our thanksgiving for this gift of holy communion and extend it into adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Today we have seen how easily and beautifully people have come to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Here our relationship of encounter with Christ deepens and matures.

But this is not the end. At the end of Mass, we are sent out into the world to be eucharistic and to be the Body of Christ in the world. Jesus gives the example of washing his disciple’s feet at the last Supper. This is the example for us to be Christ to others, in love and humble service.

As St Vincent de Paul said, ‘Kindness is the key to hearts’. Pope Leo expands this vision and reminds us that the Eucharist is ‘never simply an act of individual piety... We are brothers and sisters in him. And in Christ, though many and diverse, we are one.’

The Eucharist opens us to justice and sharing, with a preferential concern for those who are burdened by poverty or marginalization.’ (MH 234) We are called to be bearers of joy, justice, truth and peace to others keeping our focus on the dignity of every human person created in the image of God.

Blessed be Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.