The Banquet of Mercy: Christ’s Invitation to All

by Fr. John Granato  |  08/31/2025  |  Words from Fr. John

My Dear Friends,

After two weeks of an exclusive Jesus, we return to a more inclusive Jesus in today’s gospel. He teaches that when you hold a banquet you should invite the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind. The Holy Mass is such a banquet. Jesus invites the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to come to the wedding feast of the Lamb. In other words, Jesus is inviting those who are sinners to the wedding banquet. No one is ever excluded from the celebration of Mass.

But, you may say, what about those who cannot receive Holy Communion. Jesus invites us to his banquet, but he also calls us to conversion and repentance. He welcomes sinners throughout the gospels, but he never lets them stay in their sin. He brings us healing. Our wounds need to be healed by the one who is the great healer. We begin that healing when we have the desire to return to the Mass even if we have walked away years before.

The healing continues when we recognize that we need to go to the great sacrament of spiritual healing, confession. We then amend our lives so that how we live is in conformity with Jesus’ teachings and the natural law. Once again, receiving Holy Communion is more than receiving our Precious Lord in Communion; it is also being in communion with the Holy Father in Rome. Someone who is not Catholic is by definition someone who is not in communion with the pope. But Jesus is inviting all people, the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind to follow him and to become a member of his Body, which is the Catholic Church.

God bless!