Great and Holy Tuesday
‘Make radiant the garment of my soul’…
Few could imagine six months ago that the world would be turned upside down by pestilence. Had we known, would we not have been better equipped?
The Lord Jesus Christ asked: ‘When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith upon the earth.’ (Luke 18:8). Are we prepared?
Yesterday we saw how St. Matthew, whose Gospel plays an integral role in shaping our Holy Week services, uses the image of the bridegroom to portray the relationship of Christ to His Church.
The Evangelist expands that analogy further as he explains the need for our readiness for the wedding banquet that symbolizes the Kingdom of God.
He does so by relating this parable of the Lord:
The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son…But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. (Matthew 22:2; 11-12)
Vestments proper for the feast of the Kingdom are fashioned with sorrow for past actions and renewal of good intentions, the desire to put off the old and put on the new. Above all, St. Paul tells us:
Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.…Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3:12, 14)
Tomorrow, we shall consider another parable of preparedness, the tale of the Ten Virgins.