Over a hundred years ago a university student found himself on a train by the
side of a person who seemed to be a well-to-do peasant. He was praying the
rosary and moving the beads with his fingers. Sir, do you believe in such
outdated things? asked the student of the old man. Yes, sir, do you not? asked the
old man. The student burst out into laughter and said, I do not believe in
such silly things. Take my advice, throw the rosary out through this window, and
learn what science has to say about it. Science? I do not understand this science.
Perhaps you can explain it to me.
The man said humbly with some tears in his eyes. The student saw the man was
deeply moved, so to avoid further hurting the feelings of the man, he said, please
give me your address and I will send you some literature to help you on the
matter. The man fumbled in the inside pocket of his coat and gave the boy his
visiting card. On glancing at the card, the student bowed his head in shame and
became silent.
The card read, Louis Pasteur, Director, Institute of Scientific Research, Paris,
France. The world would like to convince us that faith and reason are enemies,
that religion and science are opposed, but the church, the Pope's remind us that
faith and reason are friends, that they get along very well together. God is the
author of all truth. This is the month of the rosary. Friday was the feast of the Most
Holy Rosary. That feast was instituted to commemorate the victory of the Christian
troops at the naval battle at Lepanto in 1571. They defeated the Ottoman Turks that well
outnumbered them.
In fact, before entering into battle, the Christian troops sent, Christian
commanders sent a message to the Pope which read, we are badly outnumbered. Pray
the rosary. And the victory that follows was attributed to the intercession of
Our Lady of the Rosary and the feast was instituted on the
anniversary of that victory, October 7th.
And,
actually, the rosary can help us with to understand today's gospel or at least to
respond to the invitation, like in that gospel parable, the king is God the Father
and Jesus is the wedding banquet. Jesus is the marriage of heaven and earth.
He's the wedding of humanity and divinity. The bride is his church.
You and I are invited to this wedding banquet to union with his son, to intimacy with the father.
And so the Holy Spirit is offered to all, and the invitation is sent.
I like to say that the invitation is truth.
Truth is God's invitation to the wedding banquet.
We come up with every pathetic excuse under the sun not to go.
They refuse to come, it's observed, is the saddest line in the New Testament.
All were invited, were being invited all the time, in fact.
Flannery O'Connor said about her writing, she said,
All my stories are almost over.
Always about the offer of grace, usually refused.
Almost all my stories are about the offer of grace, usually refused.
Father Barron says that when he was a seminarian, a 19-year-old seminarian, he was assigned to a parish.
And the priest and the seminarians at that parish were invited to the cardinal's residence on a Thursday evening.
And Father Barron said, that's my day off.
And the pastor said, you don't have a day off when you're invited to the cardinal's house.
Well, our excuses don't cut it.
Our excuses are kind of pathetic.
We've been invited to, not even the wedding of, I mean, if we were invited to the wedding of, you know,
a Christian, we wouldn't have been invited to the wedding of a Christian.
We wouldn't have been invited to the wedding of a Christian.
We wouldn't have been invited to the wedding of a Christian.
We wouldn't have been invited to the wedding of a great king and queen, a princess and a prince.
Hopefully, we would accept the invitation.
Well, we were invited to an even greater wedding banquet.
It's called Heaven.
And the first thing to make sure is that we don't refuse the invitation.
But at the end of that gospel, it says, it tells us the second great tragedy.
The second great tragedy is to go to the banquet, but not to be properly.
Why did you come without a wedding garment?
And the man gets thrown out.
So the first great tragedy is to reject the truth, reject the invitation.
But the second great tragedy is to refuse to change my life.
God wants intimacy with us, not only in our mind, but in our wills, in our lives, in our hearts.
Many, some refuse to put on their clothes.
Many, some refuse to put on the wedding garment of grace, to allow the truth to transform them, to allow the truth to transfigure them, to put on Christ, his, that's St. Paul's expression, to put on Christ's humility, charity, justice, meekness.
If we don't, we cannot come to the banquet feast.
And I think the rosary helps us to hear God's truth.
What is the truth God is speaking to me?
And how does it change my life?
How can I live that truth?
Those are the two questions we ask when we pray.
Because like we say, God is constantly inviting us, but prayer opens our minds and hearts to that invitation and allows that truth to transform us, to transfigure us.
Basically, we could sum it up that God wants to marry you.
God wants to marry you.
He wants us to share his life.
Like we say, the greatest tragedy is that I refuse, that I say no to that great invitation.