Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:1–14)

And so he sent his servants to invite his friends to the marriage feast. He sent once, and he sent again, because first he made the prophets, and later the apostles, preachers of the Lord’s incarnation. He sent his servants twice with the invitation, because he said through the prophets that his only Son’s incarnation would come about, and he proclaimed through the apostles that it had. Because those who were first invited to the marriage banquet refused to come, he said in his second invitation: See, I have prepared my meal; my oxen and fatlings have been slain, and everything is ready. What do we take the oxen and fatlings to be but the fathers of the Old and New Testaments? Since I am speaking to everyone, I must also explain these words of the gospel reading. We call animals fatlings when they are well fed; fatlings have been fattened up.

It was written in the Law, You shall love your friend and hate your enemy. At that time permission was granted to the righteous to put down the enemies of God and their own with as much strength as they had, and to strike them down with the power of life and death. There is no doubt that this is forbidden in the New Testament: Truth himself tells us, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. What then do the oxen represent but the fathers of the Old Testament? When the Law consented to their killing their adversaries in return for their hatred, if I may say so, what else were they but oxen striking down their enemies with the horn of their physical strength? And what do the fatlings signify but the fathers of the New Testament? When they receive the gift of inner fatness, they flee their earthly desires and are raised to the heights on the wings of their contemplation. What else is having your thoughts on low things but a kind of mental leanness? But there are those who through their understanding of heavenly things are now being nourished by their holy desire for the things of heaven. Receiving the food of inner delight, they are being fattened, so to speak, with a more abundant sustenance. The psalmist was longing to be well-fed with this fatness when he said: May my soul be filled as with marrow and fat!

Because the preachers sent to proclaim the Lord’s incarnation, first the prophets and later the holy apostles, endured the persecution of unbelievers, it was said to those who were invited but refused to come, My oxen and fatlings have been slain, and everything is ready, meaning, ‘Reflect on the deaths of the fathers who went before you, and think about correcting your lives.’ We should note that in the first invitation nothing was said about oxen and fatlings, but in the second they are said to be already slaughtered. When we refuse to listen to his words, almighty God adds examples, so that we may more easily hope for everything we believe to be impossible, the more that we hear that others have already accomplished it.

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But since you have already come into the house of the marriage feast, our holy Church, as a result of God’s generosity, be careful, my friends, lest when the King enters he find fault with some aspect of your heart’s clothing. We must consider what comes next with great fear in our hearts: But the king came in to look at the guests, and saw there a person not clothed in a wedding garment.

What do we think is meant by the wedding garment, dearly beloved? For if we say it is baptism or faith, is there anyone who has entered this marriage feast without them? A person is outside because he has not yet come to believe. What then must we understand by the wedding garment but love? That person enters the marriage feast, but without wearing a wedding garment, who is present in the holy Church, and has faith, but does not have love. We are correct when we say that love is the wedding garment because this is what our Creator himself possessed when he came to the marriage feast to join the Church to himself. Only God’s love brought it about that his only-begotten Son united the hearts of his chosen to himself. John says that God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son for us.

And so the One who came to us out of love made known that this love is the wedding garment. Every one of you who belongs to the Church, who has believed in God, has already come in to the marriage feast; but he has not come in a wedding garment unless he preserves the gift of love. And surely, my friends, if any one of you was invited to a marriage feast, he would change his clothing and show by his dress how he rejoices with the bridegroom and bride; he would be ashamed to appear in contemptible clothing among those rejoicing and celebrating the festive occasion. We come to God’s marriage feast and do not care to change the clothing our hearts wear. The angels rejoice, the chosen are taken up to heaven! In what frame of mind do we look upon this spiritual feast if we do not possess the wedding garment, love, that is alone becoming?

Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies 38