Homily – Clothed for the Banquet: Fidelity, Grace, and the Eucharist

In the first reading from Judges, we meet Jephthah — a man chosen by God to deliver Israel from the Ammonites.
The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, but in his zeal he makes a rash vow:

“If You give the Ammonites into my hand, whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it as a burnt offering.”

Jephthah wins the battle — but it is his only child who comes out to greet him.

The tragedy here is not the victory, but the vow: zeal without prudence, religious enthusiasm without conformity to God’s law.
The Torah forbade human sacrifice (Deut. 12:31; Lev. 18:21). Jephthah’s error was binding himself to something contrary to God’s will, and then tragically following through.

We must learn from this — good intentions do not make an action pleasing to God if it is against His revealed truth. Our worship and our promises must be shaped by the mind of the Church, not by our own impulses. The saints were zealous, but always with obedience to the faith once delivered.

In the Gospel, our Lord tells a parable: A king prepares a wedding feast for his son. The invitation goes out — but is ignored. Some are indifferent; some are hostile; some are distracted by their own business.

The king opens the feast to all — the good and the bad alike — until the hall is filled. But then comes the moment of judgment: a man is found without a wedding garment. The king confronts him, he is speechless, and he is cast out.

The Fathers of the Church are clear about the symbolism:

• The banquet is the Kingdom of God, fulfilled here in time in the Church and sacramentally in the Eucharist.
• The wedding garment is sanctifying grace — first received in baptism, restored in confession, preserved by living in God’s friendship.
• To come without it is to enter outwardly but not inwardly — to be present in body but absent in soul.

St. Gregory the Great says the wedding garment is “love, which is the mark of all the elect” — but it is love that obeys God’s commands, not sentimentality.

For Catholics, this parable is not abstract. The banquet is here.
The King’s Son is the Bridegroom; the Church is His Bride; and the altar is the table of the wedding feast.

Every Mass is a foretaste of the eternal banquet. Here, the King feeds His guests not with symbolic bread, but with the very Body and Blood of His Son — truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

This is why the state of our soul matters.
To receive Holy Communion without the wedding garment of grace is not just inappropriate — it is sacrilege (cf. 1 Cor. 11:27–29). The invitation is for all, but the readiness is real.

St. Pius X, whose feast we celebrate, understood this parable in his bones.
He saw a Church in which many Catholics received the Eucharist rarely, as though it were too holy to approach.
Others came casually, without preparation of soul.

He acted decisively, restoring frequent Holy Communion for all in a state of grace, and lowering the age for First Communion so that children could receive as soon as they reached the age of reason.

His reason?
Because the Eucharist is not a reward for the perfect, but food for the pilgrim.
Because grace grows in us when we receive Our Lord worthily and often.
Because the banquet is not just the goal of the Christian life — it is also the strength for the journey.

Pius X also warned of Modernism — the error that dissolves faith into personal opinion, strips dogma of certainty, and empties the sacraments of supernatural reality.
Against this, he insisted: the Eucharist is Jesus Christ Himself, and the Church He founded is the one ark of salvation. Outside of her, there is no secure way to the banquet.

Tonight’s Mass is ad orientem — priest and people turned in the same direction, toward the Lord.
This is not turning away from you — it is all of us together turning toward Him.

It is a visible confession that the Mass is first and foremost directed to God the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
It echoes the ancient Christian practice of facing East — toward the rising sun — as a sign of Christ who will return in glory.

When we pray this way, the altar becomes not just a table but an altar of sacrifice, the meeting place between Heaven and earth. It reminds us: the banquet is also the Cross. The feast is prepared by the Bridegroom’s death.

So, brothers and sisters:

• The invitation is for all. No one is excluded from the call to salvation.
• But the garment is essential. Sanctifying grace is the wedding garment.
• Confession is how we wash it when it’s stained. Prayer and virtue are how we keep it bright.

St. Pius X would plead with us: do not stay away from the feast; but do not come without preparation.
If you are in grace, come frequently. If you are not, be reconciled — then come.

The man in the parable was speechless when confronted by the king. Let it not be so with us. Let us be able to say, “Lord, I am clothed in Your grace, washed in Your blood, strengthened by Your sacraments.”

The tragedy of Jephthah is zeal without truth.
The tragedy of the guest without a garment is presence without conversion.
The joy of the saints is readiness — a heart prepared, a soul in grace, eyes fixed on the Bridegroom.

One day, the King will enter the hall — not in sacramental veils, but in unveiled glory.
On that day, may He find us clothed for the feast, lamps lit, hearts burning, and hear Him say:

“Friend, you are ready. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”