First Reading
Isaiah 25:6-10
1. How can a feast––juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines–– be a sacramental vision of the universe? Does banquet imagery describe well the fullness of life in the presence of God?
2. “He will destroy … the web that is woven over all nations.” What are the “webs” over all nations today that God will destroy? And in doing so will God wipe tears from every face? Are racial injustice, human trafficking, the climate crisis and starvation webs over many nations?
Second Reading
Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20
1. Will the Lord ever test you beyond your capacity? Will he always be with you? When difficulties arise in daily life do you remember Paul’s words: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me”?
2. The readings show God bestowing gifts on us without measure. Do you “measure” when you give? How could you be a little freer?
Gospel
Matthew 22:1-14
1. Besides answering God’s invitation to the feast, what is expected of us? Are we the guests or are we also the ones doing the inviting? How does this banquet not only sustain life but also transfigure it?
2. “Go out therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.” Pope Francis speaks of the “existential peripheries of humanity, those places on the margins, those situations where the hopeless remnants of humanity camp out and live.” Which of these would you like to see the Church travel in, or yourself travel there and invite people?
And the Church is called to reach the daily thoroughfares, that is, the geographic and existential peripheries of humanity, those places on the margins, those situations where the hopeless remnants of humanity camp out and live.
It is a matter of not settling for comforts and the customary ways of evangelization and witnessing to charity, but rather of opening the doors of our hearts and our communities to everyone, because the Gospel is not reserved to a select few. Even those on the margins, even those who are rejected and scorned by society, are considered by God to be worthy of his love. He prepares his banquet for everyone: the just and sinners, good and bad, intelligent and uneducated.
Pope Francis, Angelis, 10/11/2020
