WHAT TO WEAR AT MASS

A SERMON FOR THE 19th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

We will soon be coming to the end of this long season of Trinitytide, which extends from Trinity Sunday in May until Advent in December.  Very often during Trinitytide, the Sunday Gospel recounts a story told by our Lord, in which he seeks to teach a lesson to the simple folk who followed him.  Today, we sophisticated folk of the 21^stcentury hear the same stories, and I hope that with all our modern education, our technology, and our highly developed powers of comprehension, we are able to recognize more easily the meaning of these parables of our Lord, and come away with a more profound understanding of what he was trying to teach.

However…  Let’s be realistic and recognize rather that with all our modern intelligence, both natural and artificial, we are actually less likely to realize the significance of these parables.  Why? Mostly, I think, because with all the distractions of our modern life, we just can’t be bothered to try.  We’re more interested in this afternoon’s football game or what we’re going to have for dinner to have to start worrying about what someone said two thousand years ago.

But I think that if our Lord meant to give us a lesson, we belong taking the time to find out what that lesson is.  After all, it’s not obvious what he’s getting at, when he tells the story of the great lord who invited so many to his wedding feast, but in the end had to force people to come.  And the ones who are finally dragged in from the highways and byways, what about that poor guest who gets kicked out because he isn’t dressed properly?  I mean really!—first somebody grabs him off the road where he was probably on his way to work, in his work clothes, then they drag him off to some wedding of someone he doesn’t know, only to suffer the indignity of being thrown out because he isn’t in a tuxedo?  Doesn’t seem quite fair does it?

Here’s one interpretation of our Lord’s parable.  It is “an” interpretation, not necessarily “the” interpretation.  The point of a parable is that each of us can apply the lessons hidden within its words to our own lives, and find a meaning that applies specifically to ourselves. So my interpretation is really only one of many, but I hope it will at least serve to kick your own minds into gear, as it were, and start you thinking.

First, the marriage feast.  Marriage, as we all know, is the union between a man and a woman.  This union is traditionally recognized as symbolizing the union between Christ and his Church.  The Church is often referred to as the Bride of Christ, and we, who are members of that Church, are of course the offspring of that union, or in other words the Children of God.  The great lord in the story, of course, represents God, who calls people to the wedding feast between Christ and his Church.  That wedding “feast” is the Mass.

The sacramental fulfillment of the Mass occurs at our communion with God, in our reception of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. This “communion” between God and his children, in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, is our own individual participation in that same union between Christ and his Church.  The Mass is, in other words, that wedding feast to which all are invited, but which, alas, so many do not attend.

Is it any wonder the enemies of the Church are so filled with hatred for the Mass?  Deep down, they recognize it as the symbol of God’s union with his (Catholic) Church, and as the enemies of that Church, they cannot abide it, nor allow it to abide. One of the few things that unite all the various Protestant sects is their denial of the Mass.  The first thing most of the reformers did was to abolish it. These are the men whom the great Lord invites to his wedding feast, but who come up with every excuse imaginable why they won’t attend.  In refusing the Mass, however, they insult the great Lord who invited them, the Lord God himself, in fact, who went so far as allowing his only-begotten Son to be tortured and put to death so that we may have this opportunity of uniting with him in Holy Communion.  Alas, so many who are called, end up not being chosen.

If there’s one lesson we should learn from history, it is that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.  The modernists of Vatican II did not learn from the Protestant revolution and the abolition of the Mass.  They repeated the same mistake, even inviting those Protestants to help them write their new Mass.  They substantially altered the whole meaning of the Mass, eliminating the sacrificial aspect altogether, and watering down the sacramental meaning to the point where that most sacred act of union between God and man is now performed without any solemnity whatever.  No longer do people kneel to receive their God.  They just take it in their hands from some “Eucharistic minister” in jeans and t-shirt, as though they were at they were at the local fast-food drive-thru being handed a bag of chicken mcnuggets.

And what about that guest who gets thrown out for not being dressed properly for the wedding feast?  Do I refer again to those who would come to church in jeans and t-shirt?  No.  We spoke last week about hemlines and necklines and the danger of falling into a pharisaical and hypocritical over-sensitivity to these things.  In passing, I would say this much, that we should wear our Sunday best when we come to Mass on Sunday, and not insult our Lord by wearing our grubbies.  The nuns in England used to compare it with being invited to afternoon tea by The Queen, “you wouldn’t wear jeans and t-shirt to have tea with The Queen, would you?” But what if you were on the night shift at the factory on Saturday night, and the only way you can make it to Mass is on the way home, wearing your overalls, or your scrubs if you’re a nurse, or your uniform if you’re a police officer.  This idea of not being dressed right for the wedding feast is obviously not meant to be taken literally as the clothes we wear.  It wasn’t the fault of that poor guest, grabbed from the hedgerows, that he wasn’t in morning dress and a top hat.

No, that’s not it at all.  Our Lord is referring to our interior clothes, the ones in which our soul is wrapped. Here we are this morning, at the wedding feast.  We were invited, and we showed up.  So far, so good.  But what clothes are we wearing on our soul?  What is preoccupying our soul and mind as we sit here, attending our weekly wedding feast.  I guarantee you that if it’s this afternoon’s football game, or our shopping list, or our social engagements, or in fact anythingother than the awesome recognition that here we are, in the presence of God, preparing to receive him in Holy Communion, consummating that union between God and his Church—if it’s anything but holy thoughts of the real reason we are present at God’s wedding feast, then regrettably, we really don’t belong here, and are worthy only to be thrown out.

Of course, no one here is God, and no one is going to know your state of mind and soul except yourself.  So don’t worry, no one is going to throw you out.  But please, let each of us in his own way, and to the extent necessary, regret inwardly for our bad choice of spiritual dress, and confess to our great Lord in heaven that we are sorry.  Sorry for our distractions, especially the deliberate ones, sorry for our attachments to the material world and its allurements, sorry for our poor, lukewarm version of what should be love for God.  As we approach the communion rail, let’s wake up to what we’re saying: Domine, non sum dignus, “O Lord, I am not worthy.”  It’s our way of changing clothes, and wrapping our soul in that love of God, This way, not only do we show our appreciation that we are called, but we actually make that final necessary step towards being chosen.