Daily Gospel Reflection for November 7, 2023

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Today's Gospel: Luke 14:15-24

Much work typically goes into hosting a big celebration. There is menu planning, shopping for food, preparing the food, cleaning the house, setting the table, decorating - all done out of love for and service to the guests who will attend.

Imagine placing the platters of food on the table, the house immaculately clean, waiting in excited expectation for the doorbell to ring any moment and for the guests to arrive—only to learn that the guests are not coming after all. Your guests provide a feeble excuse and stand you up. You’re probably incredibly disappointed, hurt, frustrated.

Now imagine the work God has done to prepare His feast - a heavenly feast. Beyond cooking or cleaning, His preparation involved sacrificing His very Son in order to open the doors for me and for you to enter His eternal, perfect celebration. He desperately wants us there! There is a place at the table with your name on it!

God wants us to dine at His heavenly banquet on the Bread of salvation—the Eucharist. But the choice is ours whether to accept. Let us never grow lax or comfortable; each day we are either working toward heaven or toward hell. It’s a sobering reality that the Israelites who heard this parable of Our Lord’s assumed they would dine in the Kingdom of God. Yet, some of those same Israelites are the ones who rejected that invitation through their rejection of Christ; instead, it is the outcasts of their society who join the heavenly feast.

May I never assume that I am a guaranteed guest at God’s feast. And may I do my utmost today to extend God’s invitation to those around me. May my positive example compel those on the “highways and hedgerows” to accept the invitation God extends to them.

Ponder:

Have I RSVP’d “yes” to God’s invitation to love? Or do I make feeble excuses for giving my time, attention, and effort to things that distract me from my eternal destination?

Pray:

Dear God, grant me the gift of final perseverance so I will remain faithful to You here on earth and thus join Your eternal feast in heaven. I offer to You today the souls of my friends and family who have died, that they will know the joy of eternal salvation.

Click to tweet:
God wants us to dine at His heavenly banquet on the Bread of salvation—the Eucharist. But the choice is ours whether to accept. #DailyGospel

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