There is a danger in thinking that Christianity is about God making us a bit nicer.
It is much more serious than that.
God says through Ezekiel:
“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
God does not promise to tidy us up around the edges.
He intends to change us from within.
Because the human heart can become hard.
We can hear the Gospel week after week and remain unmoved.
We can know perfectly well what God asks of us and still say no.
We can become so used to sin that it no longer troubles us.
That is the heart of stone. And God says: I will take it away.
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean.”
The Fathers of the Church saw here a clear foreshadowing of Baptism.
God washes us. He gives us His Spirit. He gives us a new life.
But then the Gospel gives us the other side of the truth.
A king prepares a wedding feast.
Everyone is invited.
One man comes in without a wedding garment.
At first it can seem rather harsh.
He has come to the feast. What more does the king want?
But that is precisely the point.
The man wants the feast without being properly prepared for it.
Saint John Chrysostom says the garment represents the life that should follow God’s call.
Saint Augustine identifies it especially with charity — the love of God living in the soul.
So Our Lord is warning us that it is possible to enter and still not be ready.
To be baptised and yet live as though Baptism changed nothing.
To come to Mass and still harbour hatred.
To know the commandments and simply ignore the ones we find difficult.
The invitation is free. But grace is meant to change us.
Saint Bernard understood that very well.
For him, holiness was a matter of the heart being reordered until God was loved above everything else.
Not just the appearance of it but a heart genuinely turned towards God.
That is what joins these readings together.
Ezekiel tells us what God wants to give us: a new heart.
The Gospel shows us what that new heart should become:
a soul clothed in charity and ready for the wedding feast.
God does the work. He cleanses. He gives the Spirit. He gives the grace.
But He does not force us to become holy.
So perhaps the prayer today is very simple.
Lord, take away what has become hard in me.
Give me a heart that listens.
A heart that obeys.
A heart that loves.
And through the prayers of Saint Bernard, make us ready, when the invitation finally comes, to enter the wedding feast of Heaven.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 