THE INVITATION IS OPEN 28th Sunday Ordinary Time October 11, 2026

     Brothers and sisters, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us about a king who prepares a wedding feast and invites many people. Some are too busy to come, others refuse the invitation, but the king does not give up. He sends his servants out again and says, in effect: “Go and invite everyone.” This is the heart of God: He wants us at His table. He continues to invite us, not because we have earned it, but because He loves us.                             

     This Gospel speaks to us of a God who never stops calling us into communion with Him. In the midst of our busy lives, our worries, our joys and even our struggles, the Lord continues to say: “Come to the feast.” The Eucharist is already a foretaste of this banquet, where Christ gathers us together and gives Himself to us. We do not come because we are perfect, but because we are loved.

     And as we celebrate Thanksgiving, may we recognize with grateful hearts that our lives are gifts. So many blessings can become ordinary to us that we forget to notice them. Today, let us give thanks not only for what we have received, but above all for the One who gives Himself to us. There is a place for each of us at His table, and the invitation is always open.    

                                                                                                                                          ~ Fr. Carlos Torres

 HAPPY CATHOLIC THANKSGIVING

     There is a fourth and final, more fundamental, way in which Thanksgiving is unavoidably Catholic. To be thankful is essential to being human. Every creature, by the fact of being created receives from the Creator a gift that we can never adequately be thank in return. While all creatures receive this gift, only intelligent creatures can be thankful. That is what worship is: accepting a gift and offering it back to God in thanksgiving. In Judaism, the Rabbinic tradition foresaw that in “the Time to Come all sacrifices will cease, except the Thanksgiving sacrifice… This will never cease in all eternity…This is indicated by what is written…‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts’ [Jeremiah 33:11].” 

     Thanksgiving will never cease because, as one hears in the Eucharistic Prayer II, “it is truly right and just, our duty and salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks.” In other words, to give thanks to God is to be human. Our humanity is not abolished but perfected in heaven, beginning here on earth: “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the LORD is good” (Psalm 100:4-5).  

                             ~   catholic365.com/    The-Surprising-Catholic-Origins-Of-Thanksgiving