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+TAKING OIL WITH OUR LAMPS 32 Sunday in Ordinary Time
When Jesus tells us in today’s parable to “stay awake, for you know neither
the day nor the hour” he is calling us to take an accounting of our lives, our
values in terms of eternal life. God is preparing for us a marriage feast, a
feast that we already begin to enjoy as we live in the grace of our baptism. The
Church presents this parable of the ten virgins as we draw near to the end of
the liturgical year, to impress upon us an awareness of the last things, those
matters that are most important in our lives as Christians and religious. We are
preparing for an eternal banquet at God’s table but it is a table we already
participate in as we gather here is morning.
The parables have a wonderful way of breaking us out of our conceptual world
into a world of relationships, out of our minds into our hearts. As we know from
John’s gospel there is nothing Christ wants of his disciples so much as to have
us dwell in him and he in us, to be one with God even as he and God are one. It
is to an awareness of this relationship and intimacy the parable invites us.
With so much at stake, when this call to union may come at any time, to be
awake, to be conscious of those things that prepare us for the feast is of the
utmost importance.
Those who live with Wisdom are ready for the moment. It is the five wise virgins
who are ready when the bridegroom comes for they had brought oil with their
lamps. They had foreseen the possible delay of his arrival, anticipated what
they needed. There was already at work in their hearts a wisdom that “hastens to
make herself known in anticipation of their desire.” Isn’t this exactly what
Jesus is trying to bring home to us in the gospel parable, to be alert, to be
aware of the meaning of events as they unfold in our everyday lives, to
penetrate their deeper meaning and plan for us. “Wisdom makes her rounds,
seeking those worthy of her ... meets them with all solicitude.” God is here, in
the unfolding of each one of our lives if we will but let ourselves see the
movement of grace, dare the awareness of a presence that is closer to us than we
are to ourselves.
I don’t know what you all think of the many accolades around Rosa Parks but I
have some mixed feelings. When Mrs. Parks refused to move from her seat on the
Montgomery bus she decided to live with wisdom, out of a sense that her dignity
was no different than that of the whites she was asked to make room for. Her
simple action served was a major catalyst within the civil rights movement which
brought about a boycott that changed the laws of the land. My mixed feelings are
over the fact that we publicly acknowledge the courage of this woman only 40 or
50 years after the event. Are members of our society sensitive enough to the
injustices, the inequalities, the prejudices of our own time? How ready are we
to live with wisdom? At the time of her resistance against oppression on the
bus, Parks was arrested, fired from her tailoring job and then, because of all
the harassment she experienced, probably threats on their lives, she and her
husband moved to Detroit. It takes courage to live with Wisdom for to do so
invariably means becoming vulnerable to the violence of a society that gives
rise to the injustice and inequality.
To live with Wisdom is to live by the Christ life that is within us. Few of us
may be called to take as public a stand as Rosa Parks, but we all have countless
opportunities to expressed our faith in the coming of God’s reign. Whether this
be acknowledging one another’s dignity in our community life, whether it be
questioning a war undertaken by this Nation that daily looks to be ever more
lacking in any just cause, whether it is saying “no” to a government that is
attempting to legalize the torture of our fellow human beings, whether it is
taking stock as to the quality of our religious commitment, whether it is taking
steps to prevent corporations from destroying the beauty and integrity of our
environment, we are all being called to live with Wisdom.
The strength to live as we are being called, is the life, death and resurrection
we celebrate in this Eucharist. It is the life of the Spirit, the life of Christ
living in us as he lived in Rosa Parks that allows us to see things as God sees
them, as wisdom may be simply defined. Jesus withstood every form of oppression
in his own day and lived in the only true freedom that makes us true children of
God. The life we share in this Eucharist is even now renewing the face of the
earth and will guide us into its fullness.
Wisdom 6:12-16; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
Michael Casagram, OCSO
Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse
November 6, 2005
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