“Were it your wedding day before you, would you not have disregarded all else, and set about the preparation for the feast? And on the eve of consecrating your soul to the heavenly Bridegroom, will you not cease from carnal things, that you may win spiritual?” — Saint Cyril of Jerusalem
In the Gospels, Jesus likens heaven to a wedding banquet, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (Mt 22:2). The tragedy of the parable, as Jesus tells it, is that many who are invited don’t heed the invitation. It’s not simply that they could not attend the wedding, rather, they would not. They refused. To turn away from the Eucharist is to turn away from the invitation to celebrate and rejoice with friends. Would we miss the wedding of those we love? Still less, would we show up unprepared and disheveled? The Eucharist offers the joy and mirth of a wedding feast — more even because the joys and mirth are spiritual! Let us prepare our souls for each wedding feast.
LET US PRAY
Heavenly Father, drive from my heart any sin that would preclude me from being united to you in the Eucharistic feast. May I be washed and ready for the happiness and delight in your offer, hidden in the sacred Host. Amen.
PRAYER TO THE EUCHARIST
O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
-Collect for the Feast of Corpus Christi, composed by St. Thomas Aquinas