Saint Gregory the Great comments on Matthew 22:11 from today's Readings:
But since you have already come into the house of the marriage feast, our holy church, as a result of God’s generosity, be careful, my friends, lest when the King enters he find fault with some aspect of your heart’s clothing. We must consider what comes next with great fear in our hearts. But the king came in to look at the guests and saw there a person not clothed in a wedding garment.
What do we think is meant by the wedding garment, dearly beloved? For if we say it is baptism or faith, is there anyone who has entered this marriage feast without them? A person is outside because he has not yet come to believe. What then must we understand by the wedding garment but love? That person enters the marriage feast, but without wearing a wedding garment, who is present in the holy church. He may have faith, but he does not have love. We are correct when we say that love is the wedding garment because this is what our Creator himself possessed when he came to the marriage feast to join the church to himself. Only God’s love brought it about that his only begotten Son united the hearts of his chosen to himself. John says that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for us.” (Forty Gospel Homilies, 38)
Today is also the memorial of The Queenship of Mary. Pope Pius XII's encyclical, Ad Caeli Reginam (To the Queen of Heaven) offers insights worthy to ponder today. Additional insights are provided by St Amadeus of Lausanne in the Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings.
Collect
O God,
Who made the Mother of Your Son
to be our Mother and our Queen,
graciously grant that,
sustained by her intercession,
we may attain in the heavenly Kingdom
the glory promised to your children.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Who made the Mother of Your Son
to be our Mother and our Queen,
graciously grant that,
sustained by her intercession,
we may attain in the heavenly Kingdom
the glory promised to your children.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
