Tuesday, November 5, 2019


Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 12:5-16ab; Luke 14:15-24)

In one of her novels Mary Gordon writes of viewing a sunrise from a mountaintop.  A group drives to the trailhead well before dawn.  There it begins a swift hike up the mountain in the dark.  As the light begins to appear, one young woman notices a patch of flowers in the field.  She rushes toward it in glee.  Meanwhile her companions are yelling after her to forget about the flowers for now.  The sun is going to come up in just a few minutes.  That young woman may be compared to the invitees who refuse to attend the banquet in Jesus’ parable.

The invitees should realize that the rich man’s table is so extravagant that it should not be missed.  Yet they absorb themselves in their own limited agendas.  The rich man does not sulk with the regrets.  Rather, he invites the people of the streets to take the place of the self-satisfied. 

Jesus is telling us that God’s love is not puny.  Like the rich man He invites everyone to partake of the wealth of His kingdom.  For our own good we want to put aside personal interests to participate in it.  We will not regret any cost that it might involve.  Indeed, we will only have regrets if we refuse to be part of it.