As we complete this fourteenth week after Pentecost, we first hear words from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. Paul reminds us that Jesus is absolute truth, who in his life and work brought to fulfillment the previous divine promises. The goal of God’s revelation is divine glory manifested through us. Only by His grace are we moved to give God glory.

Then Paul writes these profound words: God is the one who firmly establishes us along with you in Christ; it is He who anointed us and has sealed us, thereby depositing the first payment, the Spirit, in our hearts. The “seal” was the personal mark placed by an owner on his property; the “pledge” was a down payment signifying that the rest of the payment would be made; here the pledge is God’s Spirit. The fullest possession of messianic bounty is yet to come.

We are called to believe that God has placed His seal on us and has pledged that, if we make an attempt to grow in the likeness of Jesus, we will have the fullness of life. The down-payment that He, God, has given us is the indwelling of His Own Holy Spirit.

All those who are probably reading this, I suspect, have been baptized into Christian life. This means that God has placed His seal – His mark – on you and has given you a pledge of greater things yet to come. We are all called to believe and not doubt this wondrous truth! Search your own mind and heart and ask yourself if you believe this. Believe and don’t doubt!

Our Gospel reading relates the Lord’s parable of a wedding banquet. It appears only in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. The dissimilarities in detail between the two gospels are so great that there is room for doubt that both were using the same source. But the evidences of extensive rewriting in Matthew are clear. Instead of a dinner Matthew has a royal wedding feast. Also, in addition to the guests’ excuses presented in Luke, Matthew introduces a violently discordant note in the killing of the messengers and the ensuing war.

We have been invited to God’s banquet by our initiation into the Church. He has sealed us and given us His Spirit but we have free-will and can make excuses for not truly making every effort to grow in the likeness of Jesus. God has been generous to us. What is our response? Making excuses for not embracing wholeheartedly the Way Of Jesus only results in our cheating ourselves of the wondrous things pledged by God.