Come, Dine with Jesus

One of those at table with Jesus said to him,
"Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God."
He replied to him,
"A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.
When the time for the dinner came,
he dispatched his servant to say to those invited,
'Come, everything is now ready.'
But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves."
Luke 14:15-18

Reflection:
As baptized Christians we are all invited to dine at the banquet that Jesus prepares for us daily. But how many of us actually go and dine with him? What excuses do we use for not going to mass on Sunday to partake of the banquet.

Do we give lame excuses, such as I'm tired because I stayed out late last night, because we are too lazy to get up. Or do we push our children into sports so we have another kind of excuse one of, we have to attend the kids games. We all know that the games take place on weekends, particularly on Sundays. Yet the excuse we cannot get up now has gone out the window, because we end up taking the kids to the games so very early in the morning. There is mass on Saturday evening too, but there is an excuse for that one too. We are making supper, or we have been invited to dine out. Well these people are good enough to go out with, but then we just told Jesus he isn't good enough to dine with at his banquet.

We come up with other excuses don't we to avoid coming face to face with Jesus. Is is because we have not reconciled ourselves to him, what sin keeps you away from Jesus' banquet?

We pray to Jesus and invite him into our hearts and he comes, no questions asked. He never refuses us or gives us excuses as to why he can't come into our hearts. But today he tell us something about those who make excuses to come and dine at the banquet, they will never taste his meal. When we think about it, this is very sad because he is the source of life. He is like the honey bees make. We have a chance to rectify our errors and bring us closer to him, but first we need to reconcile ourselves to a very loving Jesus who is always calling us to come dine with him.