In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In today's gospel, our Lord reminds us of our daily correspondence with God's grace that we may respond to God's invitation to share in His divine life and ultimately becoming children of God to inherit the kingdom of heaven, and that we must not allow ourselves in any way to be influenced by this world or by the passing things of this world.
Sadly, those in the gospel who had been invited to the banquet made excuses for the reasons why they could not attend.
And it's not uncommon in our own time or through the history of the Church that individuals have made excuses to the reasons why they did not respond to God's invitation in going to mass and attending holy mass on Sunday and living earnestly the life of grace so that they may prepare for the heavenly banquet.
And so our Lord is just reminding us not to allow ourselves to make excuses and to see how important it is for us to daily respond to God, that we may put God first in our life and respond to His invitation to share in His divine life and to follow His Son, Jesus Christ.
Today we honor in the liturgy St. Charles Borromeo. He is a very prominent and interesting figure to look at. St. Charles Borromeo was the nephew of Pope Pius IV, and at the age of 22 he was made a cardinal and the head of state, and even before he was ordained a priest. And he was, at the age of 25, he was ordained a priest and made Bishop of Milan.
He was very instrumental in leading the Council of Trent and implementing the Council of Trent in the reformation of the clergy and the laity, both the clergy and the laity, the Council of Trent being the Church's primary response to the Protestant Reformation, that the Church would be renewed by this Council. And so he was a prominent figure and a very important figure that fulfilled the precepts of the Council of Trent and promulgating those precepts.
He also was very instrumental, St. Charles Borromeo, in his own diocese of Milan, and had a very beautiful, one of his famous quotes is, "conversions are primarily produced on the knee," meaning through prayer is the primary means of conversion, bringing souls back to Christ, that prayer is the primary means by which souls are returned to Christ and converted back to Christ.
St. Charles Borromeo died at a very young age, he was 46, only 46 when he died. During his lifetime in Milan there was a plague and a famine at the same time, and he was responsible for daily feeding hundreds of thousands of people, borrowing great amounts of money to feed these hundreds of thousands of people daily and paying that money back.
And so we just see in him a wonderful model in his dedication to the Church, and he is the patron saint of catechists and those who are preparing to enter the Church, to be baptized into the Church.
We can ask St. Charles Borromeo to pray for us, to put first God in our life, he was so dedicated in his daily life as Cardinal and Bishop and a priest, and we can ask him to assist us to use the short time we have left on earth to give the greatest possible glory God in honoring God and doing God's work daily in our own life.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.