Word to the Wise
Monday, November 6, 2017 - Monday in the 31th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 11:29-36 and Luke 14:12-14]"When you hold a lunch or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." [Luke]
NOVEMBER 6 ST. ALPHONSUS NAVARRETE, OP, AND COMPANIONS, Dominican Martyrs in Japan
Banquets, dinners, luncheons - these are familiar events to many of us, but not to all of us. There are many who are never able to attend something like that. In Jesus' time, whether in Palestine or around the Mediterranean region, dining could be a kind of "tit-for-tat" event. If you accept someone's invitation to dine at their house, they, in turn, expected to be invited to your house as well. This explains Jesus' comment, which takes place at a banquet, about who is NOT on the invitation list, namely, people would not be in a position to reciprocate.
Table fellowship became a hallmark of early Christian practice, and it was probably inevitable that snobbery would enter into the picture since Christianity was attracting all classes of people. St. Paul has some tough words for the Corinthians about this. [1 Cor. 11:17-22] If one was worried about the class of people who might show up, one was not worthy to be at the table of fellowship!
It doesn't take a lot of effort to apply this to our own lives, and, indeed, to our society. With the celebration of Thanksgiving coming up, we become ever more conscious of those who go hungry every day or lack even the most basic needs of human dignity. The appalling situation of refugees around the world is one BIG example, but the smaller examples in our own communities should be receiving our attention as well, and not just at Thanksgiving. Whom do we invite to the table of life, not just as individuals but as a parish, a neighborhood, a city, a state, a nation? If Jesus asks to see our invitation list, what can we show him? AMEN