“The lowly shall eat their fill; they who seek the LORD shall praise him: “May your hearts be ever merry!”

Today at Holy Mass we hear from the Gospel of St Luke……..”One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, says the Lord.

Excuses…Excuses….Excuses…Jesus prepares a “great dinner” and everyone invited has an excuse not to go…..Here is the question…Do we make excuses as well?……..While we are on the earth Jesus “invites” us all to the altar of the Lord to eat of his very body and drink of his blood…And countless upon countless people “make excuses” why they do not need to eat of this “feast”….”I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”…Sounds pretty clear to me!….Yet all we hear is excuse, after excuse, after excuse…Stop with the excuses…..Time is limited

“The lowly shall eat their fill; they who seek the LORD shall praise him: “May your hearts be ever merry!”