I was really glad I had a few minutes before Mass today to read the Magnificat meditation. Written by St. Augustine, this is an excellent explanation of the wedding garment parable.
Explain the wedding garment to us, you will say. There is no doubt at all that it is a garment which only the good have, those who are left at the banquet, preserved for the banquet to which no bad person has access, to be brought through to it by the grace of the Lord. These are the ones who have on the wedding garment.
So what is that wedding garment? This is the wedding garment: "But the goal of the commandment," says the apostle, "is love from a pure heart, and from a good conscience and from an unfeigned faith." That is the wedding garment. Not any sort of love; even people, after all, who are companions in a bad conscience are often enough seen to love each other. Those who commit armed robberies together, who engage together in witchcraft, who share their devotion to play-actors, who yell encouragement to their favorite charioteers and huntsmen, they all, very often, love each other. But you don't find in them "love from a pure heart, and from a good conscience and from an unfeigned faith." It is only such love that is the wedding garment.
- St. Augustine
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I felt the same way about this meditation! Whenever I hear this gospel, I go "what the heck is the wedding garment?" Now I finally have an answer.
ReplyDeleteThank God for Magnificat. :)