Day of Reflection invites all to the banquet through outreach and the Eucharist

Fr. Ron Rolheiser speaks at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Arlington, Sunday, August 18, 2024.(NTC/Richard W. Rodriguez)

ARLINGTON — Always, but especially during times of confusion and trouble, Catholics are required to reach out and to go and invite everyone to the banquet, Father Ron Rolheiser said.

Such was the theme of the Aug. 17 Day of Reflection at St. Joseph Church in Arlington hosted by the Diocese of Fort Worth's Mission Council during which Fr. Rolheiser, Catholic author and previous president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, delivered the keynote address. Fr. Rolheiser spoke too of the Eucharist's centrality to that call.

God's difficult call to invite all, Fr. Rolheiser called it, especially in today's secular society.

“We live in a time of a lot of anger, hatred, polarization, and division,” Fr. Rolheiser said. “Watching the news at night, it's depressing how divided our world is in our politics, churches, and family tables.”

Social media's billions of outlets of at odds information have created a modern-day Tower of Babel obscuring the focus of truth and morality, Fr. Rolheiser added.

Which, Fr. Rolheiser stressed, is why the banquet invitation call, as referenced in Matthew 22:8-14, is ever more urgent now.

“Remember, Jesus invited everybody,” Fr. Rolheiser said. “It's easy to invite our own to the table, but how do we reach across lines to invite everybody, not just those of our own tribe?”

Prayer, of course, is one way. That said, many consider mere prayer insufficient given the overwhelming scope of current global quandaries, Fr. Rolheiser said.

“The temptation is to underrate prayer and wonder what good it will do because it feels so useless when you consider the division, situation in Gaza, our political situation,” Fr. Rolheiser said. “But I'm reminded of a mentor of mine, Michael J. Buckley, who always told me, 'Prayer is most needed just when it feels most useless.'”

Fr. Rolheiser stressed the importance of remaining true to moral values and truth, no matter how inconvenient they may be, but also the importance of approaching those with different values not with contempt or superiority but with love and kindness.

“You can't invite someone to the table when you're disrespectful or lacking charity,” Fr. Rolheiser said. “You can't preach ideology, even if those ideologies have valid points. You have to preach Jesus and see how that relates to an ideology.”

Fr. Rolheiser spoke of the Eucharist as the summit of the Church's life, but also of its value as an aid in outreach. In doing so, he outlined multiple attributes of the Eucharist.

“One being that participation in the Eucharist is a prayer for the world,” Fr. Rolheiser said. “It's not a private prayer just for our parish or ourselves. We're praying for the world, Christians, non-Christians, everybody. The Church exists to try to save the world.”

Doing so feels joyful at times while less so, even boring, at others, Fr. Rolheiser said, but both are okay and both serve a purpose.

St. Joseph parishioner Grace Dormier agreed.

“Fr. Rolheiser's talk gave me a lot to reflect on about how the invitation to the banquet we are called to give affects my family, values, and principles,” Dormier said. “Like Fr. Rolheiser said, it's okay if you come to Mass sometimes not feeling good. But it's also to remember that what we are called to do is not just for ourselves but for the whole world.”

The Diocese of Fort Worth will observe World Mission Day on Sunday, Oct. 22 with the celebration of Mass by Bishop Michael Olson at 9 a.m. at St. Rita Church, 5550 E. Lancaster Ave. in Fort Worth.