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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Thursday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Mt 22:1-14): Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and the elders of the people in parables saying, “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son... But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ ..."

God’s punishment

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, we hear the Lord saying a word that, right off the bat, does not seem to "fit" with His merciful Love: "punishment". But His punishment is not like ours, in the sense that God imposes fines and likes to harm us. The expression "God's punishment" points toward my having mistaken the right track I should follow and therefore, ulterior consequences may ensue for following these false tracks and leaving the real life.

In the divine language, punishment is the situation in which human beings enter when we move away from our true essence, or when we do not respect someone else’s dignity, and turn our backs from the truth... Then, the individual takes advantage of his freedom, and abuses it. Through this false path, man tramples what he has been created for, by destroying himself.

—O Lord, You are my Creator, Who has come to us leaving Your footprints on our Earth. Let me see my path in Your footsteps.