Daily Meditation: Saturday, March 20, 2010

Parable of the feast - commentary

03/20/2010

You know the parable of the feast in the Gospels. A rich man was giving a great feast, to which many were invited. But, when the time came, they all let him know they could not accept his invitation: one had bought oxen and had to try them out, another had bought some land he had to visit, a third had just married, and so on. The rich man was very angry and ordered his servants to seek out all the beggars, the lame and the blind in town and bring them to the hall where the feast was being held. And so a whole crowd of wretches turned up to eat and drink, and so on, because the others, the 'elect', were not free. This is more or less what happens in the world: very few among the elite are free to devote themselves to divine work, so that heaven has to make do with the collaboration of those who have the least to offer.