Dear Brothers and Sisters, Jesus often uses parables to offer illustrations of what God is like, the nature of God’s kingdom, and what it means to be a citizen of that kingdom. However, over the last two Sundays, Jesus has used parables to illustrate how to be “unlike” a citizen of the kingdom – the two sons, the tenants of the vineyard, and, this week, the parable of the wedding and it's guests. What is Jesus telling us by these three stories? The parables of Jesus are important to the writers of the Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke. At times each writer repeat the same stories in their own accounts of Jesus’ teaching, though they differ in their points of detail. This is one such parable as a version of it is also found in St Luke’s gospel. What is the moral of the story? Primarily it is about taking up God’s invitation to eternal salvation, an invitation that is open to all. Our place, if we refuse will, be taken up by someone else. Banquets are lovely things; we have all been at different forms of banquets at different times in our lives. We hear in the reading from Isaiah this Sunday of the description of eternal life as a great and lavish party where the host is God Himself. The banquet in Sunday's gospel symbolises the blessing of God’s salvation, not a one-off time limited event, but something beautiful and eternal. At the time of Jesus, wedding guests would have received and accepted an invitation well ahead of the event and it was customary for the host to send a messenger around to announce that things were ready. So it seems that the guests in the parable have accepted the initial invitation but rejected the second. This would have been seen as a deep and wounding insult to the host. But in the parable the host is not just anyone, but a king. To refuse a king would have been seen at least as insubordination, perhaps treason. The important people of the king’s court are replaced by strangers. The strangers have no status to speak of, they are like us, ordinary people, a mixture of good and bad, light and dark, the virtuous and sinners. The invitation is to all, at this stage without exception of exclusion. Just as God calls everyone to a relation with him, everyone is invited. Well that sounds great but what about the incident in the story with the guest wearing the wrong wedding garment and being expelled? At the time of Jesus there was not a special garment as such but people were expected to do their best to look good for a special occasion, just as we do now. The point that Jesus is making is that God’s invitation to salvation is open to all, a free gift from him to us, universal, everyone is included but this invitation is not devoid of standards for how we live our lives. We need to make a commitment to change our clothing of weakness and sin, and do our best to put on clean clothing, permitting ourselves to be clothed in Christ. The wedding garment represents the love of God and each other - repentance; faith; belief; a change of heart and soul. Where are you up to with this? Where am I? In attending the sacrifice of the Mass we come to a banquet – the banquet of the Lamb of God. We are truly blessed as we are invited and have responded to the invitation of the supper of the Lamb. Reflecting on this for a moment, what does the wedding garment of your soul look like right here and now? We have been called but are we worthy to be chosen? Please accept an assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. I am away for the next two weeks in Rome, however please be assured of my prayers for you at the holy places. God bless and keep you always. Fr Chris

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Things take time to grow. We see it all around us in the natural world, things take time to grow also to mature. In our young lives, for a while, our bodies outpace our minds in coming to maturity. When I was 18 I considered myself to be very mature, but looking back, even into my early 20s, in hindsight, I can see that my lack of experience of life meant that I did not have a fully formed sense of myself, others, or the world. Maybe I was just a slow developer. In our world things take time to change. Take a vineyard, from planting to the first crop it takes four years. Four years in which initially not much seems to happen. The planter has to be patient. For the vineyard owner patience eventually brings the reward of wine and even wealth. The image of the people of God as a vineyard was a favourite of the Old Testament writers, we see it this Sunday in the reading from Isaiah, again in the psalm, and then in the Gospel. In Jesus' time on earth everyone knew what a vineyard was and what they were and are capable of. The image of vineyard would not have been lost on the people at time, also those people today who are used to seeing them in France, Italy and elsewhere, even in England. We are used to Jesus using parables, as Jesus does this week with the divine vineyard, however the reading from the prophet Isaiah is also a parable. The people listening to Jesus, particularly the chief priests and the elders, would have known the Isaiah passage by heart. Today’s Jesus’ vineyard story immediately follows last weeks gospel where he tells the religious VIPs that those who believe in him, the lowest of the low who we probably would not want to be associated with either, will enter God’s kingdom before them. Putting these two stories together would have shocked and appalled the great and the good, and there is yet more to come from Jesus in the same vein next week. As with all Jesus’ parables we are invited to place ourselves into the story. Who are you in Jesus' story? Are you the good master who is generous in supporting people to live a good and productive life; are you the good servant who follows the master’s instructions regardless of the consequences for yourself; are you the evil tenant who sees and seizes a chance out of the malice of their heart; maybe you are a tenant who sees what the others are doing and are appalled by their actions. Strange maybe, but perhaps you are the vine, you have slowly and quietly matured in fruitfulness and goodness over the years regardless of what goes on around you, and the fruit of your slow growth and maturation in the life of faith is almost ready for the harvest of the heavenly vinedresser. As I mentioned earlier, vineyards and garden images are used a lot in scripture. God offers us the delightful garden and vineyard as an image of the kingdom. He offers to share the garden of His kingdom with us. Not as tenants but as His beloved sons and daughters. A place where we can walk with God forever in grace and beauty in the cool of the evening, just as Adam and Eve did at the dawn of earthly creation. In the life of faith we are on the road to that place. The signposts on the road are to be found in Sunday's second reading from St Paul, by living in truth, honour, justice, purity, love, and whatever we know to be commendable in life as a son and daughter of the Most High. This is a big lifelong challenge, how can we ever live up to this? All of us know that in our frailty and weakness, we can’t, but we have the advocate always with us – the Holy Spirit; we have the divine mercy of our brother and Saviour – the Lord Jesus who died to save us; and the boundless love and compassion of our Heavenly Father. The task is, with God's help, to strive for the life of eternity in our earthly lives and we are told that the God of peace will be with us today and always. Please accept an assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. The week after next I am in Rome, be assured of my prayers for you at the holy places. God bless and keep you always. Fr Chris