5 December 2018
Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah foretold that on Mount Zion the Lord would provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines (Cf. Isaiah 25). Naturally, this prophecy was fulfilled by Jesus when he celebrated the last supper on Mt. Zion. The last supper rituals of the Catholic church both point to and make real the heavenly feast to which all peoples are invited. Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, males and females: all are invited. The invitation is universal, and the feast is universally inclusive in scope. But…
Inclusion has to be inclusion into something, otherwise, it is not inclusion. Likewise, invitation has to be invitation into something, otherwise, it is not invitation. In order to accept the invitation to be included in a feast, you must engage in feasting behavior, not fasting behavior or athletic behavior etc. Moreover, you should be attentive to the expectations of your host. Perhaps your host will expect you to use a knife and fork rather than your hands. Perhaps your host will expect you to put your cell phone away and chew with your mouth closed. If you ignore your host’s expectations, well… Jesus used the parable of the wedding feast to describe what happened to the man who was dining without a proper wedding garment (it was not a happy outcome for that poor guest).
The point is not that God is exclusive,that he excludes people who don’t conform to his personal whims. Rather, God is inclusive,because, as Isaiah states, the feast is for all peoples. But in order for anyone to be included, he or she has to be included in something,and, in this case, it is a feast, which, unavoidably, has conventions and expectations.
There remain two points of reflection for the practitioner of Ignatian Spirituality. The first is to see, with your imagination, what the true heavenly feast looks like, praying for the desire to participate. The second is to conform your will and your behavioral patterns to the conventions and expectations of the heavenly host, especially as taught by sacred scripture and the magisterium.