2. Jesus says: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (Mt 22:2). The parable of the wedding feast presents the Kingdom of God as a royal – and therefore sovereign – initiative of God himself. It also includes the theme of love, and specifically spousal love: the son for whom the father prepares the wedding feast is the bridegroom.
Although the bride is not named in this parable, the circumstances indicate her presence and make it clear who she is. This will become evident in other New Testament texts, which identify the Church with the Bride (Jn 3:29; Rev 21:9; 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:23–27, 29).
3. On the other hand, the parable clearly identifies the Bridegroom as Christ, who brings about the Father’s New Covenant with humanity. This is a covenant of love, and the very Kingdom of God appears as a communion (a community of love), which the Son brings about according to the Father’s will. The ‘banquet’ is the expression of this communion. Within the context of the economy of salvation described by the Gospel, it is not difficult to recognise in this wedding banquet a reference to the Eucharist: the sacrament of the new and eternal Covenant, the sacrament of Christ’s nuptial union with humanity in the Church.
4. Although the Church as Bride is not named in the parable, other elements are found within its context that echo what the Gospel tells us about the Church as the Kingdom of God. Such is the universality of the divine invitation: ‘The King said to his servants, “Invite everyone you find to the wedding feast”’ (Mt 22:9).
Among those invited to the Son’s wedding feast are missing those who were chosen first: those who were to be guests according to the tradition of the Old Covenant. They refuse to attend the feast of the New Covenant, giving various excuses. Then Jesus has the King, the host, say: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’ (Mt 22:14). In their place, the invitation is extended to many others, who crowd into the banquet hall. This detail brings to mind that other warning Jesus had spoken: ‘I tell you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, whilst the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out’ (Mt 8:11–12). Here we can clearly see how the invitation becomes universal: God intends to establish the New Covenant in his Son, no longer with the chosen people alone, but with the whole of humanity.
5. The rest of the parable indicates that definitive participation in the wedding feast is linked to certain essential conditions. It is not enough to have entered the Church to be assured of eternal salvation: ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ (Mt 22:12), the King asks one of the guests. The parable, which at this point seems to shift from the issue of the historical rejection of the election by the people of Israel to the individual behaviour of anyone who is called and to the judgement that will be passed on them, does not specify the meaning of that ‘garment’. But it can be said that the explanation is to be found in the entirety of Christ’s teaching. The Gospel, in particular the Sermon on the Mount, speaks of the commandment of love, which is the principle of divine life and of perfection in the image of the Father: “Be . . . perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). This is the ‘new commandment’ which, as Jesus teaches, consists in this: ‘As I have loved you, so you also must love one another’ (Jn 13:34). It therefore seems we may conclude that the ‘wedding garment’, as a condition for taking part in the banquet, is precisely this love.
This is confirmed by another great parable, concerning the Last Judgement, and therefore of an eschatological nature. Only those who put the commandment of love into practice through spiritual and corporal works of mercy towards their neighbour may take part in the banquet of the Kingdom of God: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).
[Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 18 September 1991]
