Today we hear, once again, about the wedding feast, and what happens when our garments are not clean enough to enter. We heard this same at the beginning of the liturgical year, and now, toward the end, we hear it again. If our souls are not clean, we do not enter the eternal kingdom yet, and must be cleansed. St. Gregory, great saint and great Pope, tells us what these passages mean.
'The kingdom of heaven is the assembly of the just; for, the Lord says by a prophet: "Heaven is My throne"; and Solomon says: "The soul of the just man is the throne of wisdom"; and Paul calls Christ the Wisdom of God. If, therefore, heaven be the throne of God, we must evidently conclude that, as Wisdom is God, and the soul of the just man is the throne of Wisdom, this soul is a heaven... The kingdom of heaven, then, is the assembly of the just...If this kingdom is said to be like to a King, who made a marriage for his Son, your charity at once understands who is this King, who is the Father of a Son, King like Himself. It is He, of whom the psalmist says: "Give to the King Thy judgment, O God, and to the King's Son Thy justice!" God the Father made the marriage of God His Son, when He wished that He, who had been God before all ages, should become Man towards the end of ages. But we must not, on that account, suppose that there are two persons in Jesus Christ, our God and our Saviour...It is, perhaps, clearer and safer to say, that the King made a marriage for His Son, in that, by the mystery of the Incarnation, He united the Church to Him. The womb of the Virgin-Mother was the nuptial chamber of that Bridegroom, of whom the psalmist says: and He, as a Bridegroom, cometh out of His bride chamber!'
Lord, help us understand these mysteries so that we can be invited into the wedding feast.
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