31st Week in Ordinary Time : Monday 6th November 2023

In human relationships, it is customary to invite those who have invited us back for meals. Friends, siblings, relatives, and neighbours do that all the time!

However, today, Jesus told His host, a leading Pharisee, “When you give a lunch or dinner, do not ask your friends, brothers, relations or rich neighbours, for fear they repay your courtesy by inviting you in return” (v 12). So, who should be invited? According to Jesus, those invited should be the “poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (v 13). Why? The reason that “they cannot pay you back means that you are fortunate” (v 14). Does this make sense?! If we share this with others, what Jesus said, they may think it utterly strange and unconventional. So, why did Jesus say what He said?

It is said that ‘the best hospitality is that which is given, not exchanged’. As hosts, we are called to be like God, Who, as Host of His Banquet, invited “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Lk 14:21), i.e., the impoverished, the “imperfect”, the outcasts, the forgotten … How many of these people do we know? Have we or our BEC ever invited them for a meal? Do we ever “see” them, or are they largely “invisible” to us? Or do we deliberately not see them?

What happens when we follow what Jesus says? “Repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again” (v 14). In eternity, God will repay us for our love and generosity for ‘’the last, the least, and the lost’’.

Lord, help us be doers of Your Word.