Recently a friend of mine tried hard to find out when my birthday is. There was a good reason for all that effort; there are rumours that soon the world will have suffered half a century of my existence. There are – admittedly few – people who think that the world has not suffered enough and there should be a celebration of my birthday. To be honest, I stopped having one years ago and since then I have never experienced a disappointment like the king’s in today’s gospel. By not throwing a birthday party I have never been left with a mountain of uneaten perishable food, gallons of drink and a pile of excuses, pardon me: explanations why the guests couldn’t have come along. From this very individual and selfish perspective, the new restrictions on meeting other people couldn’t have come at a more opportune time!
Today’s parable is the third consecutive act of a clash between Jesus and the Jewish political and religious metropolitan elite. Similarly to last Sunday’s, there’s a literal meaning of today’s passage; namely Jesus’ accusation of the elites. There’s also a spiritual interpretation; one that we can apply to ourselves. The image of a banquet used in today’s parable naturally invokes in our context the Eucharist, and this is my focal point today.
What is the Eucharist? At the heart of it lies the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday about two thousand years ago: ‘we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’ (Hebrews 10:10) That sacrifice had been anticipated on the night before, at the Last Supper, then fulfilled by Jesus’ death, and after his return to life became the sacramental (i.e. active and effective) embodiment. In other words, in a simplified way, each time Mass is being offered we are spiritually transported in time and space to the foot of the cross, where and when Jesus dies for my sake and yours. The Eucharist isn’t a memorial service of this distant event – like VE Day or Remembrance Sunday – but participation in the very event as if it were happening here and now. You can imagine that Jesus dies on the cross looking into your eyes and whispering, ‘I am doing it for you.’ It’s mind-blowing when you think about it!
How do we participate in the Eucharist? There’s only one straightforward answer: ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.’ (John 6:53-56) The whole body of evidence in the Bible leaves no doubt that the Eucharist – the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ – must be consumed to be effectual.
Now we come to a more direct application of today’s parable to our own lives. The participants have been invited in advance. In our case, the invitation came with our baptism. There are those who simply binned the invitation and are no longer interested – they are not here and consequently, there’s no point in preaching to absentees. At the opposite end of the scale are we, regularly attending Mass each Sunday or whenever it’s possible in the current circumstances. And there’s a significant majority of Catholics who attend Mass when they feel like it or when there’s some spare time left after everything else has taken precedence – hopefully, you will stumble upon this sermon online. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this world is more important and precious than the Eucharist. When Jesus takes first place, everything else falls into the right place.
Who is the Eucharist for? According to the long-established practice of the Church, only those Catholics who have committed a mortal sin (object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent) must refrain from receiving the Eucharist until they have been reconciled with God and the Church, most usually through sacramental confession. Venial sins are not a barrier to receiving communion, though of course, one should never dismiss those as insignificant; undealt with they can lead to lax attitudes and subsequently to mortal sins. So, over the centuries there have been waves of piety advising very frequent sacramental confession prior to receiving communion. An unintended consequence was a perception that the Eucharist is a weekly sacramental prize for good behaviour. Consequently, there are swathes of Catholics who attend Mass but don’t take communion because they feel unworthy. Which is wrong. The entire liturgy of Mass points out that the Eucharist is Jesus’ powerful gift to the unworthy: ‘As we eat his flesh that was sacrificed for us we are made strong and as we drink his blood that was poured out for us we are washed clean.’ (1st Preface of the Most Holy Eucharist). Just before communion, we say these words: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.’ We come to Jesus’ table to be healed and to be strengthened. We come to Jesus not because we deserve this gift, but because we need help to grow and be restored to what we are called to be: the perfect reflection of God’s likeness.
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