Invitation to the Royal Wedding in Heaven.

The world and times change, but something remains. The birth of a new person and the reception of the sacrament of marriage with a proper wedding feast are two beautiful moments in the lives of people who take life seriously. And indeed, each of us has been invited to such occasions or at least had the opportunity to see the small card inserted into the wedding announcement, engraved in golden letters with the inscription: We cordially invite you…

Jesus’ words are also a beautiful invitation to all of us to the daily, or at least weekly, a banquet of love that is the Holy Mass. Every Mass prepares our eternal encounter with God at the last royal wedding in heaven. Indeed the thought of the parable has not escaped your mind: ‘The wedding is prepared, but those invited were not worthy of it. Go therefore to the crossroads, and call all whom you find to the wedding” (Mt. 22:8-9). I emphasized: all of them! Why?

Because God wants every man to attain the salvation of his immortal soul, but, as we see from the Gospel, not everyone has taken the same attitude towards God’s call, and a positive one at that. As the members of the Jewish nation were invited to salvation. Because they rejected Him through their fault, the Gentiles were also invited. God leaves a free will and allows deciding freely. But too much concern for earthly things can so preoccupy a person that he has no time for higher interests and loses his salvation. That is only because of an undirected love for temporal goods. Many times today’s man has no room for prayer and worship in his busy schedule. However, an authentic Christian must and should have time for the things of God. He should have the love and strength to sacrifice even material values, if necessary, for God’s interests. Jesus’ call is urgent: “Go out quickly and … Bring …” (Lk 14:21). Do we priests, you parents and educators, consider it our primary mission to invite him warmly to the banquet, or are we merely relaxed stewards in our vocation? Are we able to tell those who stand on the sidelines that we are also inviting them to joyful fellowship, or are we perhaps presenting Christianity to them as a set of unpleasant laws and obligations?

Attention! The invitation is not a compulsion! Some naive Christians mistakenly believe that perhaps God will send cruel messengers of misfortune, sickness, great trouble, or death to individuals. Or that He will send wars, earthquakes, contagious diseases, and other calamities upon the world to force individuals and the world to repent. God always warns and admonishes by these signs, sometimes punishing, but never forcing! Perhaps the chief error on our part in neglecting salvation is the inverted order of life’s values. It ignores the higher gifts of God by overvaluing the lower things of God’s creation. It is disobedience to the words of the Lord: “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God… And all these things shall be added to you” (Mt. 6:33) is a reprehensible disregard for God and His call. When God calls, everything else must give way, even sound and holy worldly things. How many excuses have I sought so far to be able to refuse God’s call to prayer, to repentance, to the Eucharist, to charity?

Which of these five categories of people would I be likely to fall into? Distinguish well!

Category 1: Indifferent Christians
They are not fundamentally opposed to the Church or religion, but supposedly, they have no time or interest in “such things.” They have other things to worry about and much to do with family, business, health care, rest… This is a vast group these days of constant hustle and bustle.

2nd category: Superficial Christians
In the parable, they are described as men without wedding garments (cf. Mt 22:11-13). These do not care about true inner conviction. They include the so-called Sunday Christians who act like pagans on weekdays. They are dry branches on the vine of Christ.

Category 3: Militant wicked
These are the unfortunate and pronounced enemies of the Church who are portrayed as the murderers of the hosts in the parable (cf. Mt. 22:6-7). The Gospel, according to their beliefs, is the opium of humanity. Christian morality, in turn, is a weakening of national forces. Faith is said to be the obscurantists’ power tool in keeping society subject to the ruling classes. In the fight against religion, every means is suitable to them: deceptive words, a tendentious press, anti-religious laws, and the police. Their primary method is to etch ecclesiastical unity and trust in the Church’s leaders through Christian collaborators and the tactical alternation of corset and condescension. Their goal is the destruction of Christianity.

Category 4: People – Christians longing for salvation
These are people dear to God and to other people who are aware of their unworthiness and gratefully accept God’s invitation. For example, prisoners secretly took communion wrapped in waste paper or acylpyrine packets while working in the concentration camps. They risked the corvée, solitary confinement, hunger, and perhaps even their lives. Why did they not invoke the right to preserve life or health? Why do night-shift workers, musicians, cloakroom attendants, bus and train drivers, servers, police officers, and other night workers go to morning Mass in some cities, even though they could easily excuse themselves for needing necessary rest? Because they have understood the words of Scripture, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” (Lk 14:15).

Category 5: Happy people – Christians
This is the last group of people rich in love and ready for the wedding feast…

Let us unite, then, in a correct view of Jesus’ invitation and take upon ourselves the role of building scaffolding, as Pope Benedict XVI speaks of it. Scaffolding may not be the goal of building, but a great building cannot be made without scaffolding. There is no reason, therefore, for the individual parts of the scaffolding to be proud and ambitious. They must serve and nothing else. Only in this way will we be able to take the right attitude toward God’s invitation to the royal wedding in heaven. And if you ever hold in your hands a card with the words: We cordially invite you…, remember the terms of the Gospel, “The wedding is ready…” (Mt. 22:8) and do not refuse the invitation to the final gathering, for it will effectively be the only and eternal encounter with Almighty God.