OPEN INVITATION

August 18, 2024 – 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.cfm)

It was once told that while a grand feast celebration is going on in heaven, our Lord Jesus is found missing. As to account for His whereabouts, the disciples are to search for Him discreetly. Eventually Peter found the Lord at the pearly gates waiting for someone else. So, when Peter asked Him about His seeming absence & distance, the Lord said: “I’m still waiting for Judas to come. I invite Him in & He is always welcome to join us.”

We all do familiar with Peter & Judas. Both are the Lord’s trusted disciples (Peter as coordinator/Judas as treasurer) & both have failed the Lord (Peter’s denial/Judas’ betrayal). But what makes Peter better than Judas is that Peter allows himself to be forgiven, loved & invited again by the risen Lord. By killing himself, Judas however missed his chance to be forgiven, loved & invited by the risen Lord. But regardless what happened, our Lord still waits & invites us ALL (not only Judas) to be with Him united in God’s glory.

Simply put, God’s love for us through our risen Lord Jesus Christ is always an Open Invitation to all. We are all welcome then to partake & participate in God’s divine life as His family & children. All we have to do is to come & respond to God’s open invitation & allow Him again to forgiven, love & invite us always.

Brothers and Sisters, at the very heart of our readings today is the expressions of God’s open invitation for us to be part of His divine life.

In our first reading, God, as wisdom invites us to celebrate with Him, saying “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”

Paul even advised us in our spiritual divine life with God to watch carefully how we live, try to understand the Lord’s will, & be filled with the Spirit. And in our gospel today, when he said to the crowds: “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,”

Jesus is inviting us all to accept & consume His person into our very lives so that He may be with us always & we may be welcome into His divine life with God, our Father, explicitly encouraging to “Taste & See the goodness of the Lord” as our Psalm exhorts. Thus, God openly invites & wills for all of us to be one with Him in His divine life with Christ.

We emphasize here that such open invitation of God is not only available in heaven later at the end of time, but is extended even now here in our earthly life through our Eucharistic celebration. Yes, His open invitation for us to be part of His divine life is celebrated here & now as we partake in the banquet  of the Lord’s Holy Eucharist.

This means also that by invitation – the Lord’s invitation, and not by our worthiness, we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. Yes, we come to attend the Eucharist not because we are worthy deserving, but because we are invited by God.

We come to celebrate Eucharist because we are welcomed by God beyond & regardless of our righteousness or sinfulness. Because we are loved & beloved by God, we partake & celebrate in our Lord’s banquet here & now, and so, participate in sacred life, worthy & unworthy we maybe.

Be reminded then that the Lord’s invitation is ever present & inclusive. All are invited & welcome to partake in the Holy Eucharist in our earthly life here & now, and to be united in the divine life with our God now & always.

As we grow in our divine life by our Christian faith & witness, may we come, honor & respond accordingly to His open invitation regardless how blessed or broken we may be. Amen.