Homily: December 2, 2024 Monday of the First Week in Advent (Banquet)

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 "I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven."

Do you have a favorite saint who inspires you?

How would you feel if you got to meet this saint in real, and had a meal together?

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus describes the banquet in heaven. Imagine that glorious day when we will all recline at the heavenly banquet together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and your favorite saint!

All the saints, the martyrs, the prophets we have read about in the Old Testament and the apostles of Jesus will all be present too. How wonderful that will be!

At the head of the banquet table we see Jesus, gloriously radiant, with the Father and the Holy Spirit united as one, and Mother Mary right beside them!

That is just the heavenly banquet we can describe; I am sure the real thing will be much more wonderful. Every time we celebrate Holy Mass, we get a tiny glimpse, a foretaste of that heavenly banquet. We see only the physical reality, the spiritual reality which we don’t see, is glorious and grand beyond words, beyond our imagination.

The Church has been celebrating the Eucharist for 2,000 years now, and yet every Mass is one and the same sacrifice our Lord offered on the cross for the whole world. We are all united, with all the faithful of the past, all the faithful now in every corner of the world, and with all the faithful through the future until the end of time. Everyone is invited, from the East and the West.

This is our belief, our faith, our hope.

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord, where the heavenly banquet awaits us all.

Amen.

 


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Homily, Wednesday,January 5, 2022, Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop

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