Father Gervan Menezes - Oct 11

St. Philip Catholic Church: Imagine preparing a special Sunday dinner. The mom plans the meal, buys the groceries, set the table, and make everyone's favorite dish. By the time come, one child says, I have work to finish. Another says, Something else came up. Another even answered did not and never answer the phone. And some of them were even late for the dinner. The disappointment goes much deeper than wasted food. She wanted her family together. She wanted to cheer her love. The image helped us to enter in today's gospel. A king prepares a wedding feast for his son, and he invites the guests refused to come. Everything is ready, the invitation is generous, yet they have other priorities. God wants us at his table. The question is whether we will make room for him in our lives. In the first reading, Isaiah describes salvation as this great banquet. God gathers his people, overcomes death, and brings their suffering to an end. The destination of our lives is communion with God, a life in which his love heals everything that sin and death. Had wound. That promise matters when we are grieving. It matters when we stand beside the hospital bed, when a marriage is struggling, or when we carry a sorrow that nobody else can see. God knows what we carry. He invited us towards a future when which suffering will no longer separate us from joy. And in Jesus Christ that future has already begun to reach us. But it also asks us to examine our response. Some of the invited guests return to their farms and business. Those things are not sinful in themselves. Work is good. Providing for our families is good. Our responsibilities matter. Yet even good things can occupy so much space that God receives only whatever is left over. We can bring we can Begin to say, I will pray when life settles down. I will return to confession when I have more time. I will forgive when the person makes the first move. I will become more involved in my faith after this busy season. But another busy season always comes. Love requires a response in this presence. A relationship cannot grow on good intentions alone. We must give it time, attention, and room to change us. The king sends his servants into the streets. The invitation reached people who never expected a place at the table. This is a beautiful image of grace. God takes the initiative. He seeks us before we have our lives in order. Nobody here can claim to have earned God's love. Everyone, every one of us depends on his mercy. That should shape the way we welcome people here at St. Philip. Someone returning after years away, a family struggling to help their kids to grow in faith, a person carrying shame or uncertainty, and all should find a community in Ready to accompany them towards Christ. Our mission to know, love, and serve God and our neighbors begins with receiving His love and making that love visible to others. But then comes the difficult part of the parable, the guest without a wedding garment. Why does it matter? The wedding garment points us towards the response that grace asks us to do. God's invitation is freely giving, accepting, it means allowed Him to transform our lives. Think on the white garment that we receive in baptism. It expressed the new life we receive in Christ. The life is meant to become visible in our choices, in our honesty, forgiveness, purity, generosity, and care for those who suffer. We do not earn the invitation by becoming holy first. We accept the invitation by allowing God to make us holy. This is why repentance matters. We cannot sincerely welcome Christ while deliberate true closing parts of our life to Him. His mercy give us courage to acknowledge our sins, seek forgiveness, and begin again. Saint Paul shows us what this life of grace looks like. He has experienced both abundance and hardship, yet his confidence rests in Christ. He says, I can do all things in him who strengths me. He is speaking about the strength to remain faithful through changing circumstances. Christ sustains him when life is comfortable and when life is painful. The same grace is offered to each one of us. At every mass, the Lord gathers his people around his table. In the Eucharist, God Christ give us Himself and prepare us for the fullness of communion with Him in heaven. So today let us ask what keeps me from responding wholeheartedly to God? What part? Of my life needs conversion. And who can I help hear this invitation? Perhaps our response this week will be return to confession. And we have confession every day from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, Saturday from 3 to 5. I think that it's the parish that have more confessions in the diocese. It's funny, sometimes talking to the other place. yeah, we have forty-five. It's like, yeah, we have an hour every day. Maybe your people are too holy. My people need confession. My goal is one day, I it probably will get in trouble for that. I'm gonna have like a parishioner line in a non-parishioner line, like a VIP line. Are you a parishioner? Register parishion? Okay, you go first. And all the other people, I don't know how the bishop will feel about that. Perhaps it's to protect a few minutes. For daily prayer. Reach out for someone we have heard, or invite someone to come to Mass with us. The Father has prepared the feast. His grace makes our response possible. Let us come with gratitude, with repentance, repentant heart, and with the willingness to be changed. And when we do this, We'll be ready for the feast that God has prepared for us every week and perhaps every day when we come to the Eucharist.