Pastor’s Pen
St. Augustine Catholic Church
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Times
Dear church family,
Today’s message is about having a Mountain Banquet and responding to God’s invitation for total union with Hi. All of these are symbols of God loving us and providing for us. Many times we use as a first reading at funerals, this very poetic passage from Isaiah. It has beautiful ideas. First of all, it says “He, the Lord on the mountain, will provide for all peoples”—that’s us. “He will give us a feast. in ancient Jewish days, feasts were a banquet and the best thing going because some of their gifts to us today don’t seem to be important. For example, one of the Psalms says, “ You will go forth with seeds and come back to harvest and you will have wines and corn as your banquet food.”
Now to us that doesn’t sound so good, but to the Israelite people who had very little to eat, not like us eating every day and other days having nothing, they made it. They still had a wonderful relationship with God. Isaiah finally closes with saying, “Behold our God to whom we looked to save us, this is the Lord for whom we looked, let us rejoice and be glad that He has saved us. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.”
The hand of the Lord invites us to banquets—lots of them. These were particularly important images in the Old Testament and at the time of Jesus. But to us today, we just use the ordinary banquet as the presence of God in a special way. We know that it is so much more. So enjoy the theme of Banquet and Mountain as we celebrate the Word of God today. I am excited about Jesus blessing us in so many wonderful ways. He makes the way lighter for all of us. Alleluia!!
Love,
Father Bob
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