PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may always answer Your invitation and participate worthily in Your banquet.
The Invitation to the Banquet
MEDITATION
1. Today's Gospel (Lk 14, 16-24) fits perfectly with the feast of Corpus Christi "A certain man made a great supper, and invited many." The man who makes the supper is God; the great supper is His Kingdom where souls will find full abundance of spiritual blessings while on earth, and eternal happiness in the next life. This is the real meaning of the parable, but we can also interpret it more specifically, seeing in the supper and in the man who prepares it a figure of the Eucharistic banquet and of Jesus, inviting men to partake of His Body and Blood. "The table of the Lord is set for us," sings the Church, "Wisdom [the Incarnate Word] has prepared the wine and laid the table" (RB). Jesus Himself, when announcing the Eucharist, addressed His invitation to all: "I am the Bread of life! He that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst....Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die" (Jn 6, 35.49.50). Jesus does not limit Himself, like other men, to preparing the table for a supper, inviting many, and serving delicious food; he is an unheard-of procedure, which no man, however rich and powerful he might be, could ever imitate. Jesus offers Himself as Food. St. John Chrysostom said to those who wanted to see Christ in the Eucharist with their bodily eyes, "Behold, you do see Him; you touch Him, you eat Him. You would like to see His garments; He not only permits you to see Him, but also to eat Him, to touch Him, and to receive Him into your heart.... He whom the angels look upon with fear, and dare not gaze upon steadfastly because of His dazzling splendour, becomes our Food; we are united to Him, and are made one body and one flesh with Christ" (RB).
COLLOQUY
... Although a beggar I come to You because You invite me; You, who being rich became poor for me, so that Your poverty would make me rich. Weak as I am, I shall draw near, for it is not the healthy who need the physician, but the sick. I shall approach you like a cripple and say: 'Set my feet in Your paths.' I shall come like a blind person and say: 'Give sight to my eyes, that I may never sleep the sleep of death' " (St Augustine).