11/19/2014

Homily for St. Luke’s Mass for Catholic Medical Guild



St. Luke’s Mass for Catholic Medical Guild
Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


October 12, 2014


Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 25:6-10a
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:12-20
Matthew 22: 1-14


In our Gospel reading, Christ speaks in a parable to and about the People of the Old Covenant, and also to and about us (His Church–the People of the New Covenant) as guests invited and called to a wedding banquet. This metaphor conveys images of celebration, fun, revelry, and joy. The wedding imagery conveys an invitation to an intimate covenant made between God and human beings. Who would not want to be a part of such a celebration? Well, apparently, many.

These "many" are invited and called to the wedding banquet that the king is providing for his son, and they refuse to come. Just like in last Sunday’s gospel of the parable of the tenants in the vineyard, when the vineyard owner sends servants to obtain the produce and the tenants abuse, mistreat and kill the servants. So also in this gospel, the king’s servants are abused, mistreated and killed when they summon the invitees to the wedding feast. It is not now a refusal to give the fruits of the vineyard to the landowner; it is now a refusal to let oneself be invited to a wedding banquet, image of joy, covenantal union, communion and life. How hard-hearted and close-minded might these supposed invitees be? They feel that they have enough knowledge about their status and identity independent of their host’s initiative. They understand their participation in the life of the kingdom to be sufficiently established on their own knowledge alone, and a response is not only unnecessary, it is not wanted because it would move them from their selfish complacency. Even joy will not move them. Their knowledge is self-contained; a covenant would only inconvenience them with expectations to practice and to offer an active response. In other words, “Why should they bother?”

The imagery of marriage and the wedding banquet is used in many places in Sacred Scripture to denote closeness and intimacy with the Lord. The Lord wants his people close to him in joyous celebration. So, in the parable from today’s Gospel, the king then sends out his servants to invite other people who are not complacent in their own status and who accept the invitation to enter into covenantal unity. They enter and join the celebration. Their entrance and joining the celebration requires a preparation and action on their part–simple passivity will not suffice. Thus, the late invitee who is not adequately dressed for the celebration (who does not follow through with his response to the invitation) is cast out into the street.

The relationship between physicians and patients is often understood as a covenant; that is, as consisting of intimacy and trust in a unity unlike any other simple professional occupation. For some physicians, the structures of contemporary medical education steeped in technology and a disproportionate demand for publishable research, have prompted them not to respond to the invitation to medicine as an actual practice involved with the needs of patients. Sadly, some physicians instead mistakenly settle for science as sufficient for their identities and status as physicians. Like the invitees who refuse the generous call of the king, they view the invitation to the celebration of the intimate covenant of medical practice as not only unnecessary but also as a burden. Research is enough for them; they need not respond to people.

The covenant between physicians and patients has been further jeopardized in recent years by the same old selfishness of sin but dressed in the new and insufficient garments of bureaucratic proceduralism and commercialism. This jeopardy is caused by those that bother to enter into the medical practice but never really follow through in the sacrifice required to care for patients. Instead they fearfully surrender their covenant of care to the demands for cost-efficiency made by third party payers steeped in bureaucracy and other false idols of for-profit healthcare. Like the man in the parable, they respond to the invitation but do not follow through with perseverance but cave in to fear.

The parable in today’s Gospel conveys the fulfillment by Christ of Isaiah’s prophesy proclaimed in our first reading–the unshrouding of the veil that covers all nations–that is sin and its bitter effects including ignorance, sickness, and ultimately death. The victory of Christ establishes a new covenant and fulfills the old one. It falls to Christ alone to unveil the veil of death that clouds humanity. While physicians and health care practitioners assist in this mission of overcoming suffering and death through care and healing–it is never for physicians to remove the veil neither through inducing death nor by unnecessarily prolonging it.

Our lives as Catholics involve a response to an invitation from the Lord. The response begins in Baptism and continues through the twists and turns and requires not only preparation but perseverance in good deeds. During this month dedicated to Respect Life, it is incumbent upon us to pray for our physicians and to thank them for their covenantal care for us–which they regularly do at great risk to their livelihood because of their courage in following through with perseverance in their Baptismal response.

We are all invited to the wedding banquet, but being chosen depends upon our response and our perseverance. The poor, speechless guy in the gospel is not appropriately clad, and as a result is cast out from the wedding banquet. He remains a bystander even after he is invited to participate. Though invited and called, he was not prepared–not ready, not chosen. The invited, but poorly dressed and cast out individual is likewise the “half-hearted,” “not-too-sure,” “blows with the prevailing winds”, unfaithful and ill-prepared supposed “follower.” Though invited and called, he was not ready for where the call would take him.

Every Sunday, and today again, we are invited to the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb–the Eucharist instituted by Christ. We are called to communion with our God–closeness, intimate proximity with the Lord. “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb and we are not worthy to have Him taken under our roof, but He says but the word and each of our souls is healed.” “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” What about you and me? Are we “dressed” for it? Are we ready and prepared?