7 November 1989
Jaro, Philippines

My dear Confreres,

Whenever I read the Gospel to which we have just listened, I think of it as the Gospel of excuses. "A man was giving a large dinner and he invited many...but they began to excuse themselves, one and all. The first man said that he had bought some land and had to go to see it, the second man that he had bought some cattle and he wanted to go and inspect them, and the third man said he had married a wife." (Lk 14:16-20). Now all three made excuses for not accepting the invitation. The excuses were polite and they seemed, on the face of things, to have been genuine. Perhaps the most genuine is the third. Could you get a more genuine one than a man who was newly married and did not want to leave his wife alone during their honeymoon? He was a man who was socially concerned. He understood the value of the person. What is interesting--and perhaps a little frightening--about this parable is that the man who gave the banquet did not accept the excuses. The host was not only disappointed, but was angry. That would seem to indicate that the excuses were not fully valid. The excuses seemed reasonable, but they were rejected. Those invited had not understood--or chose not to understand--the urgency of the invitation.

This parable is a parable about an urgent invitation. Have you ever noticed how many of Our Lord's parables are about invitations? That should not surprise us, because you will notice from the Gospels that the little word come was often on the lips of Jesus. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened." (Mt 11:28). To Peter in the darkness of the night across the waters, He addressed the word, come. "Allow the little children to come unto Me." (Mt 19:14). It is the word come that is at the heart of the vocation of the disciples, and of all our vocations.

Not only is the word come at the heart of our vocations, but it could be said to be the word that God is speaking to us at each moment of our day. It is His come that invites us to prayer. It is His come that invites us to give ourselves to the apostolate. It is His come that we hear in the cries of the poor. Even in those difficult situations in which we find ourselves, Jesus Christ is still uttering His come. When we find ourselves in difficulties, we waste much time saying to ourselves that if things were different, if I had been given more opportunities, if I had been given greater talents, if, if! When I indulge in regrets about what God has not given me, I am making it more difficult for myself to hear His come, for His love is present in all circumstances of my day. Even when things go wrong and I am surrounded by the rubble of my failures, His invitation to come is still there. Even when we fail Him through sin, He continues to invite us to rise again, to come to Him as the prodigal son did to his father.