When people are baptized, they have an opportunity to participate in the Good News of Jesus' resurrection. It's an invitation to understand that we each have unique identities that come not from the secular world but are given to us by God. What prevents us from receiving God's invitation? Father Mark explains in his latest podcast.
When people are baptized, they have an opportunity to participate in the Good News of Jesus' resurrection. It's an invitation to understand that we each have unique identities that come not from the secular world but are given to us by God. What prevents us from receiving God's invitation? Father Mark explains in his latest podcast.
Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 35 of Season 6 for the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary time: Oct. 15, 2023. Our Gospel reading is from Matthew, Chapter 22, verses 1-10.
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying, 'Tell those invited: "Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”' Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, 'The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests."
The Gospel of the Lord.
“Receive the Invitation,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
One of the more intriguing scripture passages I have found is at the end of the Gospel of Mark, where the disciples come to Jesus' tomb, and there find a young man in white clothes who announces to them that Jesus has been raised from the dead, That what he said is true, and to go out and now tell the world this good news. And their reaction to that invitation was one of terror and fear. So much so that they did nothing and said nothing to anyone.
Their reaction to the invitation was one of terror and fear.
Now, you would think that those closest to the heart of Jesus would have understood the message and would have gladly proclaimed what they saw. After all, Jesus explained all this to them many times.
That invitation is given to each one of us in our baptisms. Because in our baptisms, we are invited to participate in that good news. We are invited to get on the same page with God. We are invited to look at ourselves in a different way, not as people just of the world, but as people who are claimed for God and by God. That our unique identity is not told to us from the world but is given to us by God in the essence of our soul. That is our true and real self. But we tend in our lives to run away from that truth. We tend to run away from the resurrection. We tend to ignore the invitation to new life, and we get all caught up and preoccupied with the stuff of the world, with its stresses, with its ideologies, with its preoccupations, and with our own agendas.
We get so wrapped up in fear and anxiety that it cripples us and prevents us from the freedom that God is offering us. But it's not something that we can seek or find superficially. It's something that we must delve into and search for and continue to long for and seek to remind ourselves over and over again of that invitation that we were given in baptism and reaffirm that faith every moment of our lives. It is so easy to get drawn into a secular agenda. We can so easily become consumed by the ways of the world. So much so that they become true for us, and then we allow those things to define us. How we act, what we wear, where we live, what we buy, how we present ourselves, and what we see as important.
Whereas the Good News directs us to the Gospel, which reminds us that each one of us is a precious child of God, given in the essence of our soul a unique identity given to no other. That I am not meant to simply be in this world, but I'm hardwired and programmed for eternal life, and that that is where the essence of myself is found, and that is the cause of my hope and then my joy, so that I don't get bogged down by the pressures of this world I don't be consumed in the lies that I am told I don't get consumed in the false images that people say I am or that I believe myself.
And so today, that invitation is given to us yet again, and God invites us to the Feast of Resurrection. Do we simply take that invitation and put it on the counter and get on with the other stuff of our life? Do we find an excuse not to take up that charge and be people who live the Gospel? Do we ignore it and just go about the other concerns that are before us? Or do we gladly accept it, heart, mind, body, and soul, and attend that feast with gladness and joy, knowing that we have been claimed by Christ and are on an eternal, never-ending road?
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.