Many are invited, but few are chosen. - Matthew 22:14

In our gospel, the king invited a lot of people to attend the wedding feast of his son but refused. Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. All of them have their own priorities so why would they go. Many are invited, but few are chosen. These chosen ones are the one who accepted and went to the wedding feast. It becomes very apparent that the Kingdom of God is a tangible manifestation of the relationship between God and those He calls. The wedding feast is likened to attending the Holy Mass. The king who invited is God. For instance, a friend would invite us to go to church for Holy Mass, Should we accept it or not? Admit it or not every so often we refuse our friend’s invitation. We would always articulate alibis to evade from going to Mass. However when they invite us to go to “gimik” or “laag”, we would straightaway say yes. Do we see what we are missing once we refuse the invitation to attend the Holy Mass? It’s not our friend who we upset, but the Lord. We fail to attend the holiest and most significant hour of our lives to be with him. What is one hour of wedding feast? What is one hour of Holy Mass? What is one hour in 24 hours in a day compared to 7-8 hours we spend in our own personal lives?
Jesus in the gospel invites us to go to Holy Mass. He doesn’t care what kind of a person we are; sinful, poor, or how rich we are. We are all fair in the eyes of the Lord. What he really cares is only our willingness and gratitude to be with Him. Everyone, your past has never defined you in the eyes of our God; you still receive the same invitation. God invites all, but expects us to come with a good heart. Often we see people around Mass who seem not to respect it. They may not come often etc., however God looks to the heart. While he is totally the inviting one, he wants us to be with him. The heart that follows is the heart that wants to pray, to want to do good things, to love. Every loving heart is a heart from God. We always focus on our personal and worldly activities that we tend to forget God. In a week, we can’t even give the Lord an hour of our time. Brothers and sisters let us be thankful for all the blessings we have received and one way we can compensate that is to go to Holy Mass. Let us pray for a deeper faith and love and a better spirit of service and sense of responsibility to our community.
- Kyra Biongan

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