WELCOME TO ST AGNES ECCLESTON

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s Gospel passage tells us about a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son (cf. Mt 22:1-14). He is a powerful man, but he is above all a generous father, who invites others to share in his joy. In particular, he reveals the goodness of his heart in the fact that he does not compel anyone, but invites everyone, even though this way exposes him to the possibility of rejection. We notice that he prepares a banquet, freely offering an opportunity for encounter, an opportunity for a feast. This is what God prepares for us: a banquet, to be in communion with him and among ourselves. And we, all of us, are therefore God’s invited guests. But a wedding banquet requires time and commitment on our part: it requires a “yes”: to go, to go to the Lord’s invitation. He invites, but he leaves us free.

This is the type of relationship that the Father offers us: he calls us to stay with him, leaving us the possibility to accept or not accept [the invitation]. He does not propose to us a relationship of subjection, but rather of fatherhood and sonship, which is necessarily conditioned by our free assent. God is very respectful regarding freedom; very respectful. Saint Augustine uses a very beautiful expression in this regard, saying: “He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent” (Sermonclxix, 13). And certainly not because he does not have the capacity to do so — God is omnipotent! — but because, being love, he respects our freedom fully. God proposes: he does not impose. Never. (Pope Francis, Angelus, 15 October 2023)