“I was studying late and just couldn’t wake up”; “I’ve just come back from a night shift”; “It’s the only day I get to laze around in the morning and party in the evening”; “I can’t miss my tuition classes”. These are some of the very plausible reasons that people have for not attending Sunday Mass. To be serious about our work is a good thing, but when our work keeps us away from God, then the good becomes the enemy of the best!

It’s pretty much evident that the parable that Jesus narrates in today’s Gospel is a metaphor intended to reveal to the ‘chosen people’ how they have repeatedly rejected God’s invitation for what they believed was more important. The people ‘absent’ at the wedding had not even bothered to excuse themselves. To ignore God’s invitation is the worst form of refusal. The one ‘without the wedding garment’, represents those who respond to God’s invitation with a kind of lukewarm, uncommitted attitude, which is equally unacceptable.

Perhaps one of our greatest failings is our preoccupation with what we think are the necessities of life. But real necessities would never keep us away from God.