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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I join the many thanks you receive for having discovered your site, for more than 2 years now I have been reading all your answers and you do not know how much grace I have received.

Today I would like to write to you because after having attended the Holy Mass on both Saturday and Sunday I noticed with great regret how our pastors teach the Holy Scriptures.

Yesterday’s Gospel in which Jesus tells the parable of the banquet of the King and of the unkind guests and of the guest without the wedding dress.

You have always remembered that the fathers of the Church saw sanctifying grace in the wedding dress, which is objectively a supernatural gift.

In the homily on Saturday, the priest said that the wedding garment “is the awareness of being Christian and behaving accordingly by making an effort to be Christian”.

In Sunday’s homily, the priest said that the wedding garment “is putting on the sentiments of Christ and divesting oneself of one’s own sentiments”.

There is no way … speaking of the supernatural in the Church is banned. Everything is reduced to a religion that starts from man, from his efforts, from his abilities.

For this there was no need for Christ, the Jewish religion of the Old Testament was already enough.

Furthermore, today speaking of the wedding dress as a sanctifying grace would clearly go against Amoris Laetitia which accepts the possibility of approaching communion even in a state of grave sin.

Reading the Summa Theologica I read something interesting about the justification of the sinner who “requires a movement of free will against sin because to get closer to God one must move away from sin, since they are the two extremes of the justification movement”

and again “it requires: infusion of grace, faith, detestation of sin, remission of guilt, because every movement implies:

– the motion of the one who moves, which is the infusion of grace;

– the motion of the subject moved, that is the free will that approaches God with faith and abandons sin;

– the end of the motion, with the remission of guilt, that is, the fulfillment of justification. “

Therefore, according to St. Thomas, the work of justification, for which we receive sanctifying grace, is incompatible in a person who has not detested sin and turned away from it.

(…).

With love

Luca

Response from the priest

Dear Luca,

the comment of the Holy Fathers is unanimous on this wedding garment.

1. Origen, who is not a holy father but an authoritative ecclesiastical writer, comments: “Afterwards the king entered to see those who were seated before the food was presented to them, to keep and give gifts to those who had wedding clothes, and to condemn those who did not have them. Hence it follows: The king entered to see the guests. (…).

Entering, he saw one who had not changed his dress ”.

2. Saint Gregory the Great says: “What should we mean by wedding dress if not charity?

Because the Lord had it in himself when He came to celebrate His wedding with the Church.

He who believes in the Church, but does not have charity, enters the wedding without a wedding dress ”(Homeliae in Evangelia 1287 C).

It should be remembered that charity is the life-giving principle of grace, so whoever does not have charity does not even possess grace.

3. Saint Augustine: “Anyone who seeks glory there, not that of the bridegroom, but his own, dares to come to the wedding without a wedding dress” (Contra Faustum 22:19).

4. St. Hilary is even more explicit: “Wedding dress is also the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the candor of the celestial habit which, once received with the confession of faith, must be kept clean and intact until the kingdom is reached of the heavens” (Commentarium in Matthaeum 1004 B).

5. St. Thomas: “He saw a man who was not wearing a wedding garment.

What is this bridal gown? Christ.

We who are Christ’s, we put on Christ, as Saint Paul says to the Romans 13:14.

In fact, some dress in Christ through the sacrament: “Everyone who has been baptized into Christ has clothed himself in Christ” (Gal 3:27).

Some are Christ’s through charity and love: “Above all, have the charity which is the bond of perfection” (Col 3:15)

The same is true of Christ for the conformity of works (Rom 13:14).

Therefore to have the wedding garment is to put on Christ for good works, for the holy life, for true charity “(Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 22.11).

6. However, Amoris laetitia never says that it is lawful to approach communion even in a state of grave sin.

It recognizes that the state of grace can be recovered in a non-sacramental way, that is, through the exercise of charity that covers a multitude of sins (1 Pt 4,8).

Here is the text: “In any circumstance, before those who find it difficult to fully live the divine law, the invitation to walk the via caritatis must resound.

Fraternal charity is the first law of Christians (cf. Jn 15:12; Gal 5:14).

Let us not forget the promise of the Scriptures: “Above all, keep fervent charity among yourselves, because charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pt 4,8); “Atone for your sins with almsgiving and your iniquities with acts of mercy towards the afflicted” (Dn 4:24); “Water extinguishes the fire that rages, almsgiving atones for sins” (Sir 3:30).

This is also what Saint Augustine teaches: “As if we were in danger of a fire we would first run in search of water, with which we can put out the fire, […] equally, if some flame of sin has been released from the hay of our passions and therefore we are shaken, let us rejoice in the opportunity that we are given to do a work of true mercy, as if we were offered the fountain from which to take water to put out the fire that had started ” (De catechizandis rudibus, I, 14,22) “(Amoris laetitia, 306).

Thank you for what you wrote and also for giving me the opportunity to clarify some very important things.

I remind you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo