The Robe of Righteousness Is 25:6-10; Phil 4:12-14,19-20; Mt 22:1-14 (28 /A)

 

The Robe of Righteousness

 

Is 25:6-10; Phil 4:12-14,19-20; Mt 22:1-14 (28 /A)

 

“May your priests be clothed with your righteousness” (Ps 132:9)

 

Today Jesus speaks to us about a wedding feast. The king prepares a banquet for his son, but the guests refuse to come. So, he sends his servants into the streets and says, “Invite everyone you find.” And the hall becomes full “both good and bad” (Mt 22:10). What message does it bring us? No one is excluded from the love of God. The poor, the stranger, the rejected, the sinner, the forgotten—all are invited to the banquet of God’s Kingdom. Every human being has a place at God’s table because every human person possesses dignity.

 

But then Jesus gives us a surprising warning. The king sees one guest who is not wearing a wedding garment and asks, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” (Mt 22:12). What is this “wedding garment?” It is the robe of righteousness. Isaiah says, “He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Is 61:10). This robe is first a gift of God’s grace, making our lives begin to look different. St. Paul says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14). To put on Christ means “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Col 3:12). Therefore, the Gospel asks us something deeper than, “Are you invited?” The real question is: “Does the invitation transform us?”

 

We attend church service and participate in the sacramental life, and still fail to wear the garment of righteousness if our hearts remain indifferent to others. We cannot sit comfortably at God’s banquet while ignoring the hungry person outside. We cannot speak about God while humiliating the poor, exploiting workers, rejecting the stranger, or remaining indifferent to human suffering. The prophet Micah tells us what God desires: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8). Pope St Gregory the Great calls upon the pastors not to be afraid to assert what is right. If they intervene on behalf of the flock, they set up a wall against the enemy in front of the house of God. Pastors who lack foresight hesitate to say openly what is right because they fear losing men’s favor. As the voice of truth tells us, such leaders are not zealous pastors who protect their flocks; rather, they are like mercenaries who flee into silence when the wolf appears (Office of Reading 27^th Sunday).

 

Today let us look into our hearts and ask: What am I wearing before God? As we receive the Eucharist, it must become visible when we leave this church. The robe of righteousness must be seen in our homes, our families, our workplaces, and in the way we treat the weakest members of society. We know that Mother Teresa of Calcutta would go out every night to the streets of Calcutta to gather the dying to give them, with love, a good death: clean, well-clothed, and if possible, baptized. Once she commented, “I am not afraid of dying because when I stand before the Father, there will be so many poor people I gave Him in wedding garments who will know how to defend me”. Blessed be she! — Let us learn the lesson.

 

 

“May your priests be clothed with your righteousness; may your faithful people sing for joy” (Ps 132:9)