The Invitation
Gospel Reflection for Tuesday, Nov. 5th 2024 - Luke 14:15-24
One of those at table with Jesus said to him,
“Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”
He replied to him,
“A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.
When the time for the dinner came,
he dispatched his servant to say to those invited,
‘Come, everything is now ready.’
But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.
The first said to him,
‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it;
I ask you, consider me excused.’
And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen
and am on my way to evaluate them;
I ask you, consider me excused.’
And another said, ‘I have just married a woman,
and therefore I cannot come.’
The servant went and reported this to his master.
Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant,
‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town
and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out
and still there is room.’
The master then ordered the servant,
‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows
and make people come in that my home may be filled.
For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”
Today’s Gospel is Jesus describing a feast, a rich dinner with all the trimmings and trappings. The guest list is set or so it seems. The man sends out his servant to invite the guests he intends to host, who they are we are not sure, yet immediately we begin to see excuses. Fields must be examined, oxen attended to, and even a new wife. All reasons given for not attending this dinner prepared especially for them.
The man responds quickly and decisively, sending out his servant once more. This time, inviting the crippled, the lame, the blind, and the poor. When it becomes apparent that there is still more room at this dinner table, more are invited in, from the roadways, and hedgerows, perhaps travelers.
What can we make of this scene? The obvious answer is that the man is doing what Jesus mentioned in the gospel yesterday, inviting the poor and the lame. Still, as I read over today’s Gospel I was struck by something else.
How many times has the Lord invited me to His dinner table? How did I choose to respond to that invitation? When I was newly Catholic I couldn’t get enough of the Mass, the Eucharist, and the beauty of His church. It satiated all my heart’s desires. I was poor in my understanding of faith, and starving for the Truth that the Catholic Faith provides. I was a traveler wandering and looking for a place to stop and be fed. My gratitude at being in the Mass, and seeing the dots connect between the Bible and what was happening before my very eyes was incredible. I felt blessed and still do.
As time has gone on, and children, sickness, work, moving, and life has happened, excuses have also crept in. Yes, most Sunday’s I still feel that incredible awe, marveling at being present for such a feast, to be invited despite who I am and what I have done. That awe never leaves, but I am also human. I have made excuses, and at times rejected the Lord’s invitation. I have chosen other people and things over Him. My nature sometimes gets the better of me, I choose poorly, and then I go to reconciliation to set my relationship with Him right once more.
Still the Lord invites me, and you, to His dinner table. Every day. In the daily Mass and every Sunday, He extends Himself to as many as He can and yet there is still room for more.
Perhaps you too have rejected the Lord’s invitation, or maybe you have felt too blind, poor, crippled, lame, too other, to be included in the Lord’s affairs, to have a seat at His table.
Friends, today’s Gospel is clear that the Lord invites all to His dinner feast, and if we accept His invitation, there will be room and room abundantly for all.
Beautiful!. Thank you, very uplifting!!!!
Excellent article! Thank you! Here's an article I wrote the other day that I'd like to share with you.
For those who don't know, Cardinal Carlo Martini was the architect of the Masonic organization known as the St. Gallen Mafia.
A priest friend of mine, Fr. Charles Murr knew Cardinal Martini, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the architect of the Novus Ordo Mass, and all of the prelates in Pope Paul VI's Curia, because he worked at the Vatican from 1972-1979 as the Secretary of his good friend, then - Archbishop Edouard Gagnon, who later was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II. FYI, Archbishop Bugnini was a "modernist" as was his superior Pope Paul VI. Bugnini "had the ear" of Pope Paul, since he was his closest confidant and mentor throughout Vatican II and in the years following the close of the Council.
That was a serious problem for the Church, since Bugnini was an active member of the French and Italian Masonic Lodges during and after Vatican II, as Archbishop Gagnon discovered during a three year long investigation of every member of Pope Paul VI's Curia, which Pope Paul approved! As Fr. Murr states in his book "Murder in the 33rd Degree/The Gagnon Investigation Into Vatican Freemasonry," before Archbishop Gagnon conducted his investigation, Cardinals Dino Staffa and Silvio Oddi, who served in Pope Paul VI's papacy discovered that Archbishop Bugnini, Deputy-Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and his friend Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, which decided who would and who would not become a bishop, - met privately with Pope Paul and placed before him documentation of a very damning nature concerning Bugnini & Baggio, and then formally accused Baggio and Bugnini of being active Freemasons and, as such, traitorous infiltrators of the central government of the Roman Catholic Church. If, as Cardinals Staffa and Oddi alleged, Sebastiano Baggio was the "Freemason Ambassador to the Holy See," the havoc he was in a position to wreak upon the universal Church could cause irreparable damage. The bishops who had been nominated on his watch reflected Baggio's own liberal ideological views. In the view of Cardinal Staffa and Cardinal Oddi, and some others in the Roman Curia, the "Baggio Boys" were self-styled "progressives" who were opposed to the central authority of Rome, all too ready to jettison theological orthodoxy in the name of "aggiornamento" and "dialogue" with the world. They argued that this trend was supported by the values of the creed of Freemasonry that Cardinal Baggio covertly espoused.
As for Bishop Annibale Bugnini, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and undersecretary in the Congregation for Rites, his Freemason attachment, explains the radical liturgical revolution taking place in the Catholic Church. The implementation of the directives of the Second Vatican Council had patently gone far beyond the stated intentions of the Council Fathers, and indeed at times actually contradicted them. Venerable rites, customs, and devotional practices that had been safeguarded and passed on for centuries were simply swept aside! (page 27 of Murder in the 33rd Degree)
Fr. Murr goes on to say on page 27: Annibale Bugnini's Masonic membership could certainly explain much that was going drastically wrong in the Church, liturgically, doctrinally, and morally.
In the Foreward of his book, Fr. Murr writes: In the words of Fr. Joseph Gelineau, S.J., who served on the Consilium to reform the liturgy, "To tell you the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity. The Roman rite as we knew it no longer exists." [Demain la Liturgie (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf), p. 77]. After quoting Fr. Gelineau's lament about the Novus Ordo Mass, he asks the question. Did the architect of "the new Mass" seek to give the Church an ecumenical, enlightened liturgy that appealed to "modern sensibilities" at the expense of fidelity to the Lex orandi of the Roman Rite? Such a goal can be explained in part by the zeitgeist of the '60's ... but it also expresses the ideals advocated by Freemasonry: a humanity that strives to leave behind the limitations of outworn creed and dogma to forge a new, "supraconfessional" humanity.
On the last page of the Foreward, Fr. Murr mentions that the liturgical reforms carried out after the Council may have been infected with Masonic doctrines, doctrines inimical to the Revelation entrusted by God to his Church.
In my opinion, given the irrefutable evidence of Vatican Freemasonry operatives within the Curia of Pope Paul VI, who virtually "hijacked" the proper
implementation of the primary directives of that Council, and ultimately stole the desired outcome of Vatican II away from Council fathers. That Masonic takeover of the Second Vatican Council was the "fissure" through which the "smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God" as said by Pope Paul VI in his homily on June 29, 1972. He never "connected the dots" that he was instrumental in helping to create that "fissure" by allowing high-ranking prelates that he was shown authoritative proof of being active Masons to remain in his Curia and continue in their positions within the Vatican. God rest the soul of Pope Paul VI; but, he allowed known Freemasons to create a major "fissure" as well as a major rift, chasm, schism in the Church, call it what you will, - the Great Divide in the Church was given birth to under his papacy and it has only grown worse since that infamous
Council. Padre Pio knew what was going on at Vatican II. That's why he told the messenger Pope Paul VI sent to meet with him at the monastery in San Giovanni Rotondo, Cardinal Antonio Bacci, "For pity sake, end the Council quickly!" Unbeknown to most, Pope John XXIII said the same on his
death bed shortly after the close of the rebellious First Session. He was informed that Pope Paul VI had lost complete control of the Council. So, his
very last words were: "Stop the Council; Stop the Council." He uttered those words to his friend Jean Guitton standing by his bedside. Mr. Guitton was the only lay peritus at the Council.
If you would like details about why Padre Pio said what he said to Cardinal Bacci, I can inform you. Because, I met with a priest in 1973, when I was in the seminary with the SMA Fathers (Society of African Missions), who knew Padre Pio very well. I was with the SMA Fathers from 1968-1975.
Indeed, I was one of the first victims of Vatican II and its man-centered "Horizontal Transcendence" philosophy & theology. It bore a striking resemblance to the philosophies and key beliefs of Carl Jung and Teilhard de Chardin, whose books were in the library in our seminary, like many other seminaries and convents as well, in the late 60's and early 70's. The books written by Jung and Chardin were strongly recommended reading. The thinking of those two characters had a profound impact on Vatican II as is evidenced throughout all of the 16 documents spawned by that Council.
Please pray for the radical conversion of Jorge Bergoglio, like that of Saint Paul, before he leads any more souls to Hell with his heretical and tyrannical papacy that was most certainly "rigged" by a clan of Freemason cardinals with a history of lobbying for papal candidates who were sympathetic to "modernism" and a Church whose principle focus would be "ecumenism" and not the "EVANGELIZATION!" of non-Catholics.
Those cardinals with a history of campaigning for individuals with such a mindset, like Bergoglio has, are cardinals Godfried Danneels, Walter Kasper, Karl Lehmann, and Murphy-O'Connor. I remember hearing about this nefarious group of cardinals from several of my Italian SMA father superiors in Rome. FYI, Bergoglio's buddy, Theodore McCarrick did extensive campaigning for him here in the U.S. That was obviously a quid pro quo gesture on McCarrick's part. With that said, please listen to the attached podcast for detailed proof of what I have disclosed to you.
Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus per Mariam! Larry Welch
lawrencewelch2003@yahoo.com
(954) 895-2168
Fort Lauderdale, FL
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