"You Will Be Repaid"

 I have heard and read the Gospel passage for this Sunday's Mass many times in my life, but its ending struck a completely different cord with me this morning - one that is quite humbling.

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. . . .he said to the host who invited him, "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Lk 14:1, 12-14)

So what struck me? It was that if, at the end of time, I find myself invited into the wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-9), then I will recognize that I am the poor, the crippled, the lame, and blind that our Lord was talking about! If the Lord "repays" me for inviting the earthly poor, crippled, and blind to feast, then His repayment will take the form of inviting me to feast with Him — me who, even after years of His patience and grace is still so poor in terms of good works, often crippled and lame when it comes to loving others, and sometimes willfully blind to what needs to be done. 

Jesus calls each of us to humility, to recognize our true state before Him. We need to thank Him for all the good that He has already done in our souls, but we also have to be cognizant of how much is still left to be done. All of us are poor, completely in need of His grace. All of us have been interiorly crippled and lame when it came time to do what is right and good; and all of us have been guilty of being willfully blind to the truth at certain times. But God overcomes our destitution and sin by His grace. In Jesus the Father give us what we have no right to in strict justice. When Jesus calls us to meet the needs of poor, the crippled, the lame, and blind; He asks us to do what He is constantly doing for us. He invites us to let the grace with which He floods our souls become truly effectual, to change us. And God, generous Father that He is, "rewards" our cooperation with the Strength at work in us (Eph 2:8-9; Phil 2:12-13)! The truth is that, as we cooperate, we are changed into the image of the Bridegroom. He makes our souls clean and vibrant, able to engage in heavenly feasting. (And blessed be God for the gift of purgatory!)

I should spend time marinating in these other statements from Luke's Gospel:

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Lk 6:32-38)