Wearing Your Wedding Garment

Oct 11

Every community has its own traditions, customs, and rituals. This time of year, LBI has its own traditions once summer is officially over. Here at St. Francis, we celebrate the Feast of St. Francis and the LBI community ushers in the annual Chowder Cook Off. We also host the Spaghetti Dinner and the 18-Mile Run. If you’re like me, you wait for the next LBI tradition, if one would call it that: the turning off of the traffic lights!! Not until that moment do we know that summer is over! In my book, that is always a good day!

We owe an extra special thanks to The Hunger Foundation of Southern Ocean County and The Beach Haven Chamber of Commerce for giving the St. Francis Food Pantry an opportunity to collect donations at this year’s Chowder Cook-off. We all know that we are always stronger and more successful when we work together. Thanks to The Hunger Foundation for their partnership with St. Francis Community Center and our food pantry.

Not only was The Hunger Foundation interested in helping the food pantry, I recently heard that a young man in our Confirmation program also stepped up to the plate. Kevin Cassidy is in the 8th grade and has been in our Family Faith Formation program since the First grade. Not only does he have a great attendance record [yes, we do track attendance!] he also learned a few things along the way. When he heard that the St. Francis Food Pantry needed donations, he decided he was going to do something about it. He created a simple poster, shared it with his neighbors and encouraged them to help. The other day Kevin stopped by the Food Pantry with eight bags of food! I think the only people more proud of him than me would be his parents Brendan and Karin. I would assume his sister, Katherine, is too. Thank you, Kevin for taking the initiative and leading the way. Every one of us can look at the world and see people in need and problems that need to be solved. We will never fix them all but sometimes it starts with just a little poster.

The Gospel this weekend can seem a little harsh. Jeus tells us a story where the king has someone bound and kicked out into the darkness because he was not wearing his wedding garment. Jesus catches our attention this weekend because he wants to make a point: yes everyone is welcome to the wedding feast but being there, or better said, being a Christian, also has requirements.

Some of those requirements we can find in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25: 34 – 36, 40

“The king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ …. And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers or sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

Kevin, thank you living out your faith and wearing your wedding garment! Many blessings on you, your family, and all of your classmates who will celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation next Spring.