Ezekiel 36:23-28 / Matthew 22:1-14
We have heard it said that love is many a splendored thing.
Indeed, it truly is, and every human heart longs for that many splendored love.
But the problem comes when the longing becomes a demand for love.
Demand for love makes it a many horrored thing.
So love moves from beauty to tragedy when the demand comes in and that is where loving turns into hating.
Yet true love is indeed a many splendored thing when it comes from God.
That love is expressed in the 1st reading when God spoke to His people through the prophet Ezekiel : You shall be My people and I will be your God.
It is a self-giving love and it is also a love that makes no demands, but only invites others to give and to share in it.
Like the wedding banquet parable in the gospel, God does not force us to love Him.
He invites us to come to Him and be loved by Him and to be His people.
It is in God that we see that true love is indeed a many splendored thing.
May we learn to love as God has loved us.