Jesus’ parable tests how much each of us is still in touch with the vocation to joy that God has infused into everyone (Matthew 22:1-14).
The wedding feast symbolizes deep and abiding joy, the fullness of life for which God has made us all to experience. We are moved by the total personal involvement of God Who attends to every detail of the arrangements, readying His banquet for us.
What are we to make of the man who arrived not dressed in a wedding garment (vv. 11-12)?
The wedding garment symbolizes the purity of heart that is the condition to enter into God’s Kingdom; the proper disposition God demands in response to His gift of life made for joy; the interior disposition of the forgiven sinner who, overwhelmed by God’s mercy and overflowing with gratitude by being taken into God’s embrace, abandons all things for the sake of this one love.
Purity of heart is the simplicity and the unity enjoyed by a heart that after sins and tribulations has finally come to love God about all things. It is the heart of a person who embraces and lives in the First Commandment with their total self.
Purity of heart is the all-embracing single-minded love aimed at the Beloved God, extravagant in its response like the woman breaking the alabaster jar and pouring oil on our Lord Jesus’ feet while kissing them.
Purity of heart is uncalculated love that keep the promise made at Baptism, symbolized by the white garment received during which the priest or deacon says:
“[Name], you have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.”
