For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/101208.shtml
My family back in western Kansas, especially on my mom’s side of the family, are huge Chiefs fans. I remember one of the most enjoyable days of the year was when my uncles would take me and some of my cousins on a six hour trek to Kansas City to watch a Chiefs game. Being from a small farming community in western Kansas, with only 900 people or so, you can imagine how awestruck we were by a full Arrowhead stadium. Unfortunately, the Chiefs have now broken my heart so many times, I barely follow them anymore. I usually don’t mind if I’m not able to see the game on Sunday nor go to the game, although my family still comes every year. A lot of our family conversation at Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, though, is about the Chiefs. At the end of the season, after the Chiefs have broken our hearts in one way or another, my grandfather always says the same thing to me and to my uncles and cousins. Remember, boys, that you learn more by losing than you do by winning. My uncles, after hearing this axiom time and time again from their dad, have come up with a reply that I think is pretty clever. My uncles say, ‘if you learn more by losing than by winning, then I want to be stupid, because I really like to win!’
In a week where many people lost 30% or more of their retirement savings in the stock market, there were a lot of losers, and there are many lessons being taught and learned as we uncover why something supposedly so secure like our markets became so vulnerable so quickly. We would rather not have to learn these lessons. Like my uncles used to say, we would rather be stupid and prosperous, than be intelligent and broke, just like we are happy Kansas won yesterday and Missouri lost. We would rather not have to go through painful realizations and lessons in life, and we can easily get disgusted when we realize how unnecessary the pain and loss had to be. We see the current market crisis, for example, as the product of human imprudence and selfishness, the misuse of freedom by people who are in power. I’m not here, of course, to diagnose the financial crisis, or to tell you what to do with your money, if you have any. There are of course, many students here at St. Lawrence who had no money before the stock market crash, and are no worse off today than they were a week ago. What I am here to do today, of course, if to use the current circumstances of our world to announce the good news of Jesus Christ.
The good news of today’s Scriptures is that even though people prefer to focus on things that will pass away, even though people will mistreat each other, and misuse their freedom, nothing we do can change God’s love for His people, and nothing we do can change His desire to see all people come to the banquet He has prepared for humanity. Contrary to the passage given in Isaiah, which describes a feast of rich, choice foods and wines, the parable from Jesus describes as well what happens to people who reject God’s invitation – they are destroyed and their city is burned. We know very well that those who set their hearts selfishly on pleasure in this world only will have their kingdoms destroyed. It is just a matter of time, and the next lesson that nothing material lasts forever, like the lessons learned this week in the stock market, is always right around the corner for us. This terrible part of the parable, then, doesn’t really surprise us who are familiar with the necessity of being children of the spirit set on cultivating the highest divine gifts of faith, hope and love. To the contrary, the terrible part of the parable makes the good news of the parable even more dramatic and beautiful. Despite the fact that time and time again people refuse to come to the banquet God is setting for them, God’s invitation and His love are never changed or diminished. The king instead of giving up, and sending a flood to destroy all of humanity, like He did in times past, chooses instead to extend His invitation further in honor of His son, and this invitation will remain until the end of time, when the hall will be filled with guests! This is the great news of the parable for you and for me! Even though we are unfaithful, and even though 70% of Catholics will choose not to attend Mass this morning, God is ever faithful and His love does not change because through His Son, He has chosen to love us completely and irrevocably until the end of time.
For those of us who are here this morning at the banquet hosted by the Father in honor of His Son, it is incumbent upon us to make our response to the invitation ever more prompt and ever more complete. The process of conversion entails our discovering, in communion with those here with whom we pray and share God’s banquet, the uniqueness and the extraordinary depth of God’s love for each one of us, revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. We have all come to Mass reluctantly and unprepared before, and it is better if we are here than if we are not here. Yet what is offered at this banquet we are about to share is much more, my friends, than a backup plan for when the world as we know it eventually passes away. What is offered in this banquet is food that is meant to completely redeem the human heart, satisfy the human mind, and complete the mystery that lies amidst the deep hungers of every human person. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you, is how the Lord puts it to us. We strive to come to this banquet together not reluctantly, based on some faint hope that those who at least make it to Mass on Sunday might have a chance for a bonus round after life on this earth is done. No, we come to Mass because the Father has promised us that by eating and drinking the richest of foods and the choicest of wines, we will have through His Son a treasure that completes us more, and thus provides real security, in a way that a retirement plan never could. What we have set before us, my friends, is not spiritual 403b, but the beginning and end of a deep human happiness, and through our praying and eating with friends, the Father delivers on His promise of giving hope to every human person in every human situation. That is why we never fail to RSVP or to take a raincheck on the invitation to be here at Mass together, for it is here that God has promised that we will most consistently realize and believe that His love and His grace are enough to satisfy us! +m
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