Let no one delay in coming to the supper. Let us put aside all idle wicked excuses, and come to supper in which our souls are fed. Let no swelling of pride keep us back, or lift us above ourselves; and neither let unlawful superstition frighten us, or turn us away from God. Let not the delights of the senses keep us from the delights of the soul. Let us come, and let us be feasted. And who have come but the poor and the feeble and the lame and the blind? But the rich have not come there, nor the healthy, who as it were could walk well and see clearly, sure of themselves, and the more arrogant were they, the more endangered.
Let the poor come, for He who invites us, though rich, became poor for our sakes, that by His poverty we might be made rich.
Let the feeble come, for they who are in health do not need the physician, but they that are ill. Let the lame come. Let the blind come.
Compel them to come in. I have prepared a great supper, a great house: I shall allow no place there to remain empty.
The Gentiles came from the streets and the lanes. Let the heretics come from the hedges; here they will find peace. For they who make hedges are seeking to bring about divisions. Let them be drawn from the hedges; let them be plucked free of the thorns. They refuse to be compelled, and they cling to their hedges. Let us, they say, come in of our will. But this is not what the Lord commanded. Compel them, He says, to come in.
St. Augustine of Hippo