Sunday, October 11, 2026

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 22:1-14

Listen to the whole reading — MP3

First reading

Isaiah 25:6-10

In this mountain, the Lord of Hosts will make all peoples a feast of choice meat, a feast of choice wines, of choice meat full of marrow, of well refined choice wines. He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for the Lord has spoken it. It shall be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God! We have waited for him, and he will save us! This is the Lord! We have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation!” For in this mountain the Lord’s hand will rest. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.

Responsorial psalm

Psalms 23:1-3,3-4,5,6

The Lord is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the Lord’s house forever.

Second reading

Philippians 4:12-14,19-20

I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. However you did well that you shared in my affliction. My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever! Amen.

Gospel

Matthew 22:1-14

Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who made a marriage feast for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast, but they would not come. Again he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner. My cattle and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the marriage feast!”’ But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise, and the rest grabbed his servants, and treated them shamefully, and killed them. When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited weren’t worthy. Go therefore to the intersections of the highways, and as many as you may find, invite to the marriage feast.’ Those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together as many as they found, both bad and good. The wedding was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who didn’t have on wedding clothing, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here not wearing wedding clothing?’ He was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.’ For many are called, but few chosen.”

Lectio

There is a table running through all of today's readings — the feast of choice wines on Isaiah's mountain, the table prepared in the psalm even in the presence of enemies, the wedding banquet of the king's son. God's deepest desire, it seems, is to feed us, to gather us, to wipe the tears from our faces and swallow up death itself in the abundance of a shared meal. This is not a God who tolerates us or barely permits us near. This is a God who kills the fatlings, refines the wine, and sends servants running into the streets because the joy of the feast is too great to be wasted on those who won't come.

And yet the invitation can be refused, and refused so casually. The first guests don't storm off in dramatic rebellion — they simply go, one to his farm, another to his business. The tragedy is not hatred but distraction, the slow drift of a life too full of its own errands to sit down at the table already prepared. Even the man without the wedding garment is not turned away for being unworthy to enter — the whole point is that the bad and the good alike were gathered in — but for treating the feast as something he could attend on his own terms, without letting it change what he wore, who he was.

Paul knows the secret the distracted guests missed: that abundance and need are both survivable, both holy, when Christ is the one who strengthens you. He has learned to sit at the table whether his cup runs over or runs dry, because the feast was never really about the food. It was about the One who prepared it.

What is the farm or the merchandise in your life right now — the good and reasonable thing — that you keep choosing over sitting down at the table God has set for you?

When you imagine God saying to you, "Friend, how did you come in here?" — not with anger but with that ache of a host wanting all of you — what part of yourself are you still keeping outside the door of the feast?

Saint of the day

St. Tarachus and his Companions, Martyrs († 304)

Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora