Today’s gospel parable focuses on those who, for a variety of reasons, chose to ignore or reject the invitation to a wedding banquet.

Let’s have a show of hands here: Who likes to eat? If you’re sitting next to someone who didn’t raise a hand, check their pulse! Eating is not just another physiological function we’re obliged to perform, like blinking or swallowing or sleeping (or going to the bathroom). Eating is a cheerful obligation, a happy necessity.

Kelly, a teenage girl on vacation with her parents, was having a horrible time. And her face and her posture let everyone know it. All week long she'd moped by the resort's pool—alone with her cellphone.

"I can't get enough people to become lectors and eucharistic ministers," a director of religious ed and ministry recently lamented. "I put notices in the bulletin; the pastor invites people from the pulpit; I ask people directly; and the answer is always the same: 'Gee, I'd love to but I'm just too busy.'"

The Lord provides a feast for all peoples. We ask that nothing may separate us from the table of God's salvation.

To accept the invitation . . . is to be taken into Christ’s living Body, finding there a company of unlikely people who have received and answered the same invitation.