October 11, 2026
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A) on October 11, 2026 at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago, IL. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Isaiah 25:6-10; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; and Matthew 22:1-14.
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One of my absolute favorite movies is the 1958 classic comedy, Auntie Mame, starring Rosalind Russell. The story begins as the eccentric Mame Dennis, the 9th-wealthiest woman in Manhattan, becomes the guardian for her young nephew, Patrick, in the late 1920s. He arrives at Mame’s gargantuan apartment in the middle of a roaring bootlegging party, at the conclusion of which Mame shares her philosophy with the 9-year-old: “Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet!”
Today, Isaiah tells us of the ultimate banquet: the banquet of heaven. This passage is often read at Christian funerals with its promise of clarity, consolation, and joy. In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the wedding banquet, with an unexpected, dark, and sobering ending. Paul exhorts us that it’s not about living with abundance or with scarcity. God will always provide what we need.
As we gather for this banquet of the Eucharist, let us give thanks for receiving the merciful invitation from God.
Lord Jesus, you destroyed the veil of death forever: Lord, have mercy.
You save us with your Body and Blood: Christ, have mercy.
You invite us to share in your Eucharistic banquet: Lord, have mercy.
Isaiah’s vision of heaven is a powerful image. The veil that separates us from God and from our deceased loved ones will be lifted; every tear will be wiped away. It will be one unending banquet. It will be a celebration that not even Mame Dennis could replicate!
So what are we to make of this disturbing parable of the wedding feast of the king’s son? Why would anyone reject an invitation to such a banquet? Well, I’ve turned down a number of wedding invitations over the years. Weddings are expensive. I may need to use my vacation time to go. In many cases, I may not know the other guests. Why spend the time, effort, and money to socialize with people I don’t know?
Mame Dennis loves people, all kinds of people. The tension in the movie comes when Mame’s nephew, Patrick, gets engaged to Gloria Upson, a socialite from the Connecticut suburbs. Her parents definitely do not consider life to be a banquet open to all people. They have few interests, besides keeping their neighborhood homogenous. What can Mame do? She hosts a party for the Upsons that celebrates the colorful, lively atmosphere in which she raised Patrick. At first, Patrick is embarrassed that Mame serves pickled rattlesnake hors d’oeuvres to the Upsons while she seats them on avant-garde furniture. He initially objects that Mame has invited Acacius Page, the lotus-juice-drinking teacher from a nudist school that he briefly attended as a child, and Agnes Gooch, Mame’s lovable-but-awkward personal assistant who is now an unwed expectant mother. As the party progresses, Patrick gradually reclaims the colorful life that he had enjoyed as a boy with Mame. When Gloria calls Mame’s friends “riffraff,” Patrick calls off the wedding. As Mame explains as part of her humdinger of a monologue: “Patrick won’t let you settle him down in a restricted community, make him an Aryan from Darien, and marry him off to a girl with braces on her brains.”
If the banquet of the LORD, according to Isaiah, is for all peoples from all nations, what are we to make of the man who is cast out of the wedding banquet for not wearing a wedding garment? Well, we need to understand a bit more about first-century Judean customs. It’s likely that a king would have provided festive garments to all of the guests; all this man had to do was put the garment on. The lesson here, I think, is that the Holy Spirit invites us all to the banquet, but we’ve got to take the invitation seriously. Those who don’t make much of an effort to respond to God’s invitation should be seen more as the vapid, snobby Gloria Upson than as the down-on-her-luck Agnes Gooch.
When I make the effort to go to a wedding, I usually have a fantastic time. The bride and groom have wonderful friends and family who go out of their way to include me in the festivities. I forget that I’m an outsider.
Even though both the play and the movie versions of Auntie Mame starred Rosalind Russell, most people would say that the movie is superior to the play. Having already played the eccentric Mame on stage – the Mame who was most entertaining because of her outrageous wigs and costumes – Russell knew the character well enough to give her a dramatic arc in the film that was not present in the play. At least one biographer claims it was Russell’s Catholic faith that made the difference. Yes, Ros Russell – who was friends with Coco Chanel, Frank Sinatra, and 5 U.S. presidents – was involved in Good Shepherd Parish in Beverly Hills and in the Catholic Motion Picture Guild. She even wrote a screenplay about sexual harassment, all the way back in 1956. Mame Dennis’ credo may have been “Live! Live! Live! Life Is a Banquet!” but according to Russell’s biographer, “Rosalind subscribed to another creed… the Apostle’s Creed.”
Mame Dennis might have described her creed as tolerance, but the word that best describes Rosalind Russell’s vision is inclusiveness. And that’s the dominant image of the banquets in today’s readings. The banquet of heaven will include the unwed mother and the good-hearted non-Christian. The banquet of heaven will probably even include people who cheer against the Bears, the Bulls, the Sky, the Fire, the Cubs, and — I think even Pope Leo will agree with this — the White Sox!
The Church has declared several thousand people to be saints, but we have never named a specific individual as being excluded from the heavenly banquet. If I were to hazard a guess about who might not be there, it’s probably those people who refuse to accept that God opens the banquet to all peoples from all nations.
There’s plenty of room around this [motioning to altar] banquet table. St. Paul says that God will fully supply whatever we need. Who will we invite to join us here next weekend? As Rosalind Russell titled her own autobiography, Life Is a Banquet.