Navarre Bible Commentary:Tuesday, 31st Week in Ordinary Time

The Parable of the Great Supper by Parker

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

31st  Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 14: 15-24

The Parable of the Great Dinner

15 When one of those who sat at table with him heard this, he said to him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; 17 and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for all is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them; I pray you, have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum).  No passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism.

Commentary

15. In biblical language the expression "to eat bread in the Kingdom of God" means sharing in eternal beatitude, of which this great banquet is a symbol (cf. Isaiah 25:6; Matthew 22:1-4).

15–24 The banquet simile now takes on a new meaning; for Jesus uses it to describe the Kingdom of God. In this parable we see the Church taking shape in response to a universal call to holiness. God chose Israel to mediate salvation (cf. Is 45:20–25), but when everything was ready (v. 17) and he sent his Son, the majority of those he called first (the ostensibly great and good of Israel) rejected him. Therefore God will now found his Church, to be made up of the poor and despised of Israel (v. 21) and the pagans (v. 23).

This parable contains many useful ideas about apostolate and the mission of Christians. God’s call often entails a sacrifice of personal interests, and there will be some who fail to grasp the greatness of God’s gift (vv. 16–20), but even so the Lord’s servants should keep looking for new guests because there is still room at the banquet (vv. 21–22). The Gospel contains a phrase that might seem contrary to its spirit: “Compel people to come in” (v. 23). It is, obviously, not a matter of coercing anyone’s freedom but of helping people to make the right decision, to shrug off any sort of human respect, to avoid occasions of sin, to do what they can to discover the truth: “In the parable of the wedding feast, when the master of the house finds out that some guests have declined his invitation with poor excuses, he tells his servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedgerows and compel—compelle intrare—people to come in’. Surely this is coercion, an act of violence against the legitimate freedom of each individual conscience? If we meditate on the Gospel and reflect on the teachings of Jesus, we will not mistake these commands for coercion. […] His compelle intrare implies no violence, either physical or moral. Rather, it reflects the power of attraction of Christian example, which shows in its way of acting the power of God: ‘See how the Father attracts. He delights in teaching, and not in imposing necessity on men. That is how he attracts men towards himself’ (St Augustine, In Ioannis Evangelium tractatus, 26, 7)” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 37). We can and should “compel people to come in” through prayer, sacrifice, the example of a good Christian life, and friendship.

16-24. If God invites someone to know Him in faith, he should sacrifice any human interest which gets in the way of replying to God's call, no matter how lawful and noble it be. The objections we tend to put forward, the duties we appeal to, are really just excuses. This is why the ungrateful invitees are blameworthy.

"Compel people to come in": it is not a matter of forcing anyone's freedom– God does not want us to love Him under duress–but of helping a person to make right decisions, to shrug off any human respect, to avoid occasions of sin, to do what he can to discover the truth. A person is "compelled to come in" through prayer, the example of a Christian life, friendship--in a word, apostolate. "If in order to save an earthly life it is praiseworthy to use force to stop a man from committing suicide, are we not to be allowed use of the same force – holy coercion – to save the Life (in uppercase) of many who are stupidly bent on killing their souls?" (St Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 399).

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

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