Clothed in Love

 The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to accept the invitation to be part of the transformation of our environment by seeking to be clothed in the love and compassion of Christ.

Signs of Love of Life

The Reading from the Prophet Ezekiel declares God’s desire for Regeneration of the People.

* [36:20–24] These verses make clear that Israel’s restoration is God’s initiative, independent of the people’s shame and repentance (v. 31). By their wickedness, Israel provoked the exile; its presence among the nations gave the impression that God could not protect his people. God’s gracious return of Israel to its land will restore his honor among these same nations.

* [36:25–26] God’s initiative to cleanse Israel (cf. 24:13–14) is the first act in the creation of a new people, no longer disposed to repeating Israel’s wicked past (chap. 20). To make this restoration permanent, God replaces Israel’s rebellious and obdurate interiority (“heart of stone”) with an interiority (“heart of flesh”) susceptible to and animated by God’s intentions (“my spirit,” v. 27). (Ezekiel, CHAPTER 36 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 51 proclaims nearness to God and living by the spirit of God

* [Psalm 51] A lament, the most famous of the seven Penitential Psalms, prays for the removal of the personal and social disorders that sin has brought. The poem has two parts of approximately equal length: Ps 51:3–10 and Ps 51:11–19…The second part (Ps 51:11–19) seeks something more profound than wiping the slate clean: nearness to God, living by the spirit of God (Ps 51:12–13), like the relation between God and people described in Jer 31:33–34. Nearness to God brings joy and the authority to teach sinners (Ps 51:15–16). Such proclamation is better than offering sacrifice (Ps 51:17–19). The last two verses express the hope that God’s good will toward those who are cleansed and contrite will prompt him to look favorably on the acts of worship offered in the Jerusalem Temple (Ps 51:19 [20–21]).

* [51:18] For you do not desire sacrifice: the mere offering of the ritual sacrifice apart from good dispositions is not acceptable to God, cf. Ps 50. (Psalms, PSALM 51 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches us change of heart and mind in the Parable of the Wedding Feast.

 

[22:1–14] This parable is from Q; see Lk 14:15–24. It has been given many allegorical traits by Matthew, e.g., the burning of the city of the guests who refused the invitation (Mt 22:7), which corresponds to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70. It has similarities with the preceding parable of the tenants: the sending of two groups of servants (Mt 22:3, 4), the murder of the servants (Mt 22:6), the punishment of the murderers (Mt 22:7), and the entrance of a new group into a privileged situation of which the others had proved themselves unworthy (Mt 22:8–10). The parable ends with a section that is peculiar to Matthew (Mt 22:11–14), which some take as a distinct parable. Matthew presents the kingdom in its double aspect, already present and something that can be entered here and now (Mt 22:1–10), and something that will be possessed only by those present members who can stand the scrutiny of the final judgment (Mt 22:11–14). The parable is not only a statement of God’s judgment on Israel but a warning to Matthew’s church.

* [22:2] Wedding feast: the Old Testament’s portrayal of final salvation under the image of a banquet (Is 25:6) is taken up also in Mt 8:11; cf. Lk 13:15.

* [22:3–4] Servants…other servants: probably Christian missionaries in both instances; cf. Mt 23:34.

* [22:7] See note on Mt 22:1–14.

* [22:10] Bad and good alike: cf. Mt 13:47.

* [22:11] A wedding garment: the repentance, change of heart and mind, that is the condition for entrance into the kingdom (Mt 3:2; 4:17) must be continued in a life of good deeds (Mt 7:21–23).

* [22:13] Wailing and grinding of teeth: the Christian who lacks the wedding garment of good deeds will suffer the same fate as those Jews who have rejected Jesus; see note on Mt 8:11–12. (Matthew, CHAPTER 22 | USCCB, n.d.)

Steve Scholer suggests that if we make a conscious effort to slow down our all too busy lives, filled with hectic but often unimportant interruptions, we will hear God’s silent ring, his constant call to us, not on our phones, but in our hearts.

Maybe that call comes while we are in prayer, and we just need to stop talking and listen more. Maybe that call comes when our neighbor needs help or our friend needs the proverbial shoulder to cry on. Or maybe that call comes when we least expect it, when we are frustrated or angry because things have not gone as we so carefully planned them to go. 

For those of us wise enough to not only hear God’s call but take action, great things are in store. No longer will we be tormented by our misdeeds from yesterday or a decade ago, for God forgives us. And with his unending mercy and forgiveness, how we choose to interact in his world changes, and love and kindness now take center stage. Accepting God’s call now makes each of us a child of God. 

So, as we go about our Daily Examen of Conscience and place ourselves in God’s presence, let us give thanks for God’s great and endless love for us. For God is calling us to be one of his chosen, to love and serve with all of our being. (Scholer, 2026)

Don Schwager quotes “A guest with no wedding garment,” by John Chrysostom (347-407 AD).

"But since you have already come into the house of the marriage feast, our holy church, as a result of God's generosity, be careful, my friends, lest when the King enters he find fault with some aspect of your heart's clothing. We must consider what comes next with great fear in our hearts. But the king came in to look at the guests and saw there a person not clothed in a wedding garment. What do we think is meant by the wedding garment, dearly beloved? For if we say it is baptism or faith, is there anyone who has entered this marriage feast without them? A person is outside because he has not yet come to believe. What then must we understand by the wedding garment but love? That person enters the marriage feast, but without wearing a wedding garment, who is present in the holy church. He may have faith, but he does not have love. We are correct when we say that love is the wedding garment because this is what our Creator himself possessed when he came to the marriage feast to join the church to himself. Only God's love brought it about that his only begotten Son united the hearts of his chosen to himself. John says that 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for us' (John 3:16)." (excerpt from FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 38.9) (Schwager, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the texts for today.

The Word Among Us Meditation on Ezekiel 36:23-28 comments that when a person meets someone in whom they sense the mercy and love of the Lord, the encounter can be so powerful that they are moved to seek the Lord for themselves. They begin praying or searching the Scriptures or asking to learn more until they come to believe in Christ on their own.

This is the story of great saints like Edith Stein and Francis Xavier, as well as the story of everyday people whose lives are touched by the witness of a coworker, neighbor, or family member.

Of course, when we act out of pride or envy or callousness, we obscure that image of Christ. But today’s reading calls us, not to a human-generated perfection, but to an ever-growing and deepening relationship with the Lord. It calls us to let God continue to purify our hearts so that our lives testify to his love more and more.

May we all burn brightly with the love of Christ so that, through us, he can draw people out of their exile and back home to his presence!

“Lord, help me to become a testimony to your holiness so that others are drawn to you!” (Meditation on Ezekiel 36:23-28, n.d.)

Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev reflects on the central themes of the biblical prophets. Though each prophet has a unique style, they share God’s concern for justice in our fractured world:

Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and Hosea are just four of the fifteen prophets whose words have been preserved in Scripture. Each of these prophets possessed extraordinary vision. Perceiving their world as if through God’s eyes, these prophets were able to maintain a sustained focus on the suffering of the poor, to see the disaster that would inevitably come in the wake of profound, endemic injustice. At the same time, lifted by divine inspiration, each prophet possessed the moral imagination to transcend the brokenness of [their] own day and envision an alternative society. Even in the midst of crisis and imminent disaster, the prophets could see an inclusive economic and social order in which all beings would flourish.

These then are the three qualities inherent in every prophet and in the prophetic stream: an encounter with divine love and concern for the world, courage to name oppression, and moral imagination to articulate an alternative future. (Ward-Lev, n.d.)

We seek the guidance of the Spirit to empower our Baptismal anointing as priest, prophet, and leader to be clothed in love as we act as disciples of Christ in our daily environment.

References

Ezekiel, CHAPTER 36 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Bible Readings, Audio and Video Every Morning | USCCB. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ezekiel/36?23 

Matthew, CHAPTER 22 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22? 

Meditation on Ezekiel 36:23-28. (n.d.). Word Among Us. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://wau.org/meditations/2026/08/20/1650931/ 

Psalms, PSALM 51 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Bible Readings, Audio and Video Every Morning | USCCB. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/51?12 

Scholer, S. (2026, August 20). Daily Reflection August 20, 2026 | Creighton Online Ministries. Creighton Online Ministries. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-august-20-2026 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). They Would Not Come to the Feast! Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/ 

Ward-Lev, N. (n.d.). God Witnesses Injustice. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 20, 2026, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/god-witnesses-injustice/ 

Teaching Care for the People

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary, today, the Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, invite us to be open to the prompting of the Spirit and the teaching of members of our community concerning our mission as followers of Christ.

Teaching and Learning the Way

The reading from the Prophet Isaiah declares that your Teacher will not hide himself any more.

* [30:20] Teacher: God, who in the past made the people blind and deaf through the prophetic message (6:9–10) and who in his anger hid his face from the house of Jacob (8:17), shall in the future help them to understand his teaching clearly (cf. Jer 31:34). (Isaiah, CHAPTER 30, n.d.)

Psalm 147 offers praise for God’s Care for Jerusalem.

* [Psalm 147] The hymn is divided into three sections by the calls to praise in Ps 147:1, 7, 12. The first section praises the powerful creator who restores exiled Judah (Ps 147:1–6); the second section, the creator who provides food to animals and human beings; the third and climactic section exhorts the holy city to recognize it has been re-created and made the place of disclosure for God’s word, a word as life-giving as water. (Psalms, PSALM 147, n.d.)

In the Gospel of Matthew, we learn the harvest Is great but the labourers are few  as Jesus initiates the Mission of the Twelve Apostles.

* [9:37–38] This Q saying (see Lk 10:2) is only imperfectly related to this context. It presupposes that only God (the master of the harvest) can take the initiative in sending out preachers of the gospel, whereas in Matthew’s setting it leads into Mt 10 where Jesus does so. (Matthew, CHAPTER 9, n.d.)

Mike Cherney comments that the Gospel has Jesus showing his compassion and missioning his disciples to go out and carry on His work. While these are the normal Lectionary texts for Advent, the Gospel seems particularly appropriate to today’s feast of Saint Francis Xavier. 

When I read today’s Gospel, I was reminded of John F Kennedy’s inaugural address which concludes "here on earth God’s work must truly be our own." (Rereading its full text, I was reminded how many of the issues of 1961 remain issues today.) I can imagine that 500 years ago, St. Ignatius and his initial followers had many of the same responses to this Gospel of compassion and missioning. Francis Xavier, whom we commemorate today, was among these founding members of the Society of Jesus. He spent the last 11 years of his life (dying at only 46 years of age) on a mission initially to India and then repeatedly to the Far East. His was a mission in line with Jesus’ charge in today’s Gospel. While many of the existing clergy in India saw their role as being in service to the Portuguese (Francis Xavier was also given a royal charge of restoring Christianity to Portuguese fortune seekers.), he often chose to build his community from the grassroots based on service to the indigenous population including a willingness to recognize the language and ways of other cultures. His concern for the poor and sick, along with the development of local leaders showed the same aspects of compassion which I read in today’s description of Jesus.

Dear Lord,

Grant me trust in Your promises.

Strengthen my patience recognizing that which is “worth waiting for”.

Forgive me for the moments when I capitulate out of weakness.

Help me to identify my mission of service that is based on compassion. (Cherney, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “In remembrance of heavenly life,” by Bede the Venerable, 672-735 A.D.

"Why should the lunar reckoning be calculated from the noontide hours, seeing that the moon had not yet been placed in the heavens or gone forth over the earth? On the contrary, none of the feast days of the law began and ended at noon or in the afternoon, but all did so in the evening. Or else perchance it is because sinful Adam was reproached by the Lord 'in the cool of the afternoon' (Genesis 3:8) and thrust out from the joys of Paradise. In remembrance of that heavenly life which we changed for the tribulation of this world, the change of the moon, which imitates our toil by its everlasting waxing and waning, ought specifically to be observed at the hour in which we began our exile. In this way every day we may be reminded by the hour of the moon's changing of that verse, 'a fool changes as the moon' (Sirach 27:11) while the wise man 'shall live as long as the sun' (Psalm 72:5), and that we may sigh more ardently for that life, supremely blessed in eternal peace, when 'the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.' Indeed, because (as it is written) 'from the moon is the sign of the feast day' (Sirach 43:7), and just as the first light of the moon was shed upon the world at eventide, so in the law it is compulsory that every feast day begin in the evening and end in the evening (see Exodus 12:18). (excerpt from THE RECKONING OF TIME 3.43) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26 comments that there are times when God seems like he isn’t answering our prayers, when, in fact, he is working on them. We may not be able to see his ultimate plan right away, but Isaiah wants us to know that God is not ignoring us. He is cultivating our faith and bringing us to greater holiness.

For example, we may equate an immediate answer from God with an immediate solution to our problem. Maybe we are praying for our spouse to finally seek help in dealing with an addiction. But even as we pray and wait, God can use this situation to build up the virtue of patience in us even as we endure the struggle. Or we may want God to do something for us—like put the right job in our path. But God may be inviting us to be like the persistent widow in Jesus’ parable and keep on looking ourselves (Luke 18:1-8).

God is always “gracious” to us, even when we can’t see it (Isaiah 30:19). May we always place our faith in him.

“Lord, help me to trust that you are always caring for me.” (Meditation on Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the description of Isaiah of the restoration of Israel in physical richness and in teaching of the Way of the Lord to the people. On our journey, God will make it better by walking with us through the difficulties. Friar Jude notes the reluctance of a Pharisee editor of the Gospel of Matthew to use the title of God. We are involved in the ministry of sharting the Good News by our actions, forgiveness, and prayer.

 Brian McLaren extends an invitation to contemplate the deep issues in the Christian faith in a spirit of openness.

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen. (McLaren, 2022)

We are called to be part of sharing the transformation of our society in the Way of Jesus as we contemplate the teaching that we have received on our journey.

References

Cherney, M. (n.d.). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/120322.html 

Isaiah, CHAPTER 30. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/30?9 

Matthew, CHAPTER 9. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/9?35 

McLaren, B. (2022, December 3). The Future of Christianity: Weekly Summary — Center for Action and Contemplation. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-future-of-christianity-2022-12-03/ 

Meditation on Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://wau.org/meditations/2022/12/03/547643/ 

Psalms, PSALM 147. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/147?1 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture ... Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2022&date=dec3