O my God, give me the sovereign grace to respond to all Your invitations with generosity.
Today’s Gospel outlines the sad story - so true even today - of human ingratitude which rejects God’s mercy, and is indifferent to His gifts and invitations.
“The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son, and he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come.” The king is God the Father, the Son is the eternal Word who, becoming incarnate, espoused human nature in order to redeem and sanctify it. God invites all men to the great banquet of the divine nuptials at which they will find their salvation; but submerged in the materialism of earthly things, they reject the invitation and the messengers. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee”, will one day be the lament of the Son of God as He denounces before the world, not only the obstinate resistance of the chosen people , but also that of all souls who have stubbornly and ungratefully rejected His love and His grace. The prophets, St. John the Baptist, and the apostles are the “servants,” the messengers sent by God to call men to the banquet of the Redemption, but they were all taken and killed. They “laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death,” the Gospel says. Today’s parable ends there, but unfortunately, human ingratitude has gone much further: not only the servants and messengers were killed, but even God’s very Son. Yet God’s mercy is so great that it cannot be vanquished; He still invites all men to His feast, and even offers this divine Son whom they have killed, to be their Food. The banquet is prepared; Jesus, the divine Lamb has been immolated for the redemption of mankind and, if many fail to accept the invitation, others will be invited. “The marriage indeed is ready, but they that were invited were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage.”
We too have been invited. How have we responded to the invitation? Have we not also shown more interest and concern for earthly matters than for the things of God? Have we not been like the men in the parable who “neglected, and went their way, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise?”
This month is dedicated to both Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary and the Holy Angels. Thus, the First Sunday by right belongs to Our Lady, and the preferred Mass is the Votive Mass of the Most Holy Rosary, as per the feast proper on the 7th October, with commemoration of the XIX Sunday After Pentecost. This is a concession granted in the Rubrics of the 1962 Missale Romanum.