Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Phil 4:6-7



Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Wedding Garment

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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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1 comment:

  1. 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.
    Thank God for Magnificat. :)

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments -- sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself!