32nd Sunday “A” – (Mt 25: 1-13)

32nd Sunday “A” – (Mt 25: 1-13)
Introduction

In today’s parable of the wise and irrational virgins, the Lord Jesus reveals to us the other law of spiritual life and the kingdom of God. The proclamation of the kingdom of God is the central motif of Jesus’ command. The Lord Jesus very often uses this term in parables. Sometimes behind this word lies God and his work in the soul of the person who has surrendered to him or his relationship with a man; other times, various spiritual laws are hidden behind him. Today’s parable speaks of wise expectations.

Predication

The world before Christ lived anticipating the Messiah, and the world after Christ lives again in anticipation. One still expects the fullness of Salvation. They have been waiting for the coming of the Messiah, and we are also waiting for the second coming of Christ and the completion of the mysteries of Christ. We all expect someone or something, but the problem is what we expect and whether we expect reasonably or unreasonably.
You can wait for someone to arrive in different ways. Some expect the other with love, others with anger. Someone is waiting, and that is why they are making order in their affairs. He wants to receive the other in a cozy environment. Others are waiting and wasting their time playing cards or drinking. Someone is waiting and bored. And others are waiting and looking forward to it. We see that, given our earthly realities, there are already many ways of expecting. Our way of expecting, in turn, can have a retroactive effect on the expected and either evoke joy or anger and anger in him.
In today’s parable, the Lord Jesus uses the image of folk wedding customs ordinary in his time and environment. The groom was waiting with burning lamps. The burning fire illuminating the night represented the love with which they awaited him. In many eastern countries, fire, light, and love are united in folk customs. If we take a good look at the parable’s main characters, we will find that all ten waiting are virgins.
Virgo is a symbol of the free man and is the best expression of the “man of expectation” that every Christian should be. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, “I want you to be without worries. He who is without a wife cares for the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man cares about worldly things as he likes his wife and is divided. Even an unmarried woman and a virgin think of the things of the Lord to be holy in body and spirit. But a married woman thinks of worldly things like a man. “A free man strives to live exclusively for the Lord; a married woman tries above all to please her husband.”
Right at the beginning, the Lord Jesus reveals that five of them were reasonable, and five were unreasonable. They all took the lamps with them, and all decided to wait for the groom, and they all succumbed to human weakness and fell asleep. Until the groom’s arrival, no difference was seen between them. They were all virgins, waiting in the same place for the same groom to greet him when he returned from the wedding. The reasonableness of the sensible only became apparent when they were suddenly awakened at midnight. Because they took the oil in their containers, they did not fall into confusion and were ready to immediately greet the groom. But they foolishly didn’t take the oil with them, and their lamps began to go out.
The oil in the lamp shows us the essential essence of Christianity, life in the Holy Spirit, energy in the sanctifying grace that makes us friends of God. St. Charles Borromeo, whom we commemorated last week, teaches us all that the Christian should always be prepared for two things, for his death and St. reception. Maybe the first one, here we at least theoretically recognize the readiness for death, but why does St. receiving? Christian death and St. they have something in common. In both cases, it is the same thing: the coming of the Lord Jesus and our attitude to him.
When a co-sister instructed St. Theresa of Lisieux with the words, “Death is now coming!” She replied, “It is not death for me but the Lord Jesus!” Christian death and Holy Communion are about the same thing, the coming and receiving of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is coming, and we, like the bridesmaids in today’s parable, are to meet him.
Here, this parable begins to painfully touch on our churches’ common situation, especially during Sunday Masses. Many brothers and sisters live for a year and sometimes more without sanctifying grace, without Christ in their hearts. They defend themselves by going to church every Sunday, but they are not ready to receive Jesus. It could be said that with their Sunday visit to the church, they even somehow come out to meet him as those bridesmaids in today’s parable, but they have no oil, no fuel, no light, no living in sanctifying grace. I also met with such an opinion on this fact. Attending Holy Mass without attending Holy Communion is like something like a girl telling her boy during a date that she has found another. So, we see our irrationality. Let us acknowledge that the Lord Jesus is right for me.
In other places, too, the Lord Jesus reveals to us our irrationality: “Whoever hears these words of mine, but does not keep them, is like a foolish man who built a house on the sand.”The wise are they that hear the word by faith and receive after it.
One Indian monk thus expressed the truth about Christianity and Europe. He talked about his experience: “I was sitting on the bank of the river, and I pulled a stone out of it. It was smooth, rubbed with lots of wine. However, when I broke it from the inside, it was dry. It had been in the river for so long, but it remained dry, and no water seeped into it. So it is with Europe. He has lived in the middle of the Christian world for 2,000 years, but Christianity has not soaked into it.
The castle, which belonged to an Italian aristocratic family, was home to a gardener who took care of everything. Once a tourist came to the court, who greatly admired the beauty and order that reigned there. He learned from the gardener that he had been taking care of the castle himself for twenty-four years. The tourist asked him, “When was your last lord here?” The gardener replied, “About twelve years ago.” The tourist remarked, “But there is such order and beauty as if your master were to come tomorrow.” “He can come today!” – the gardener replied.
In the first reading, we heard these words about Wisdom: “Wisdom shines and does not lose sight; It is easily seen by those who love her, those who seek her find it. She caters to those who desire her and lets them be known immediately. Whoever is looking for her in time must not be in a hurry because he will find her sitting at his door. To think of her is the pinnacle of ‘rationality; whoever is awake because of her will quickly find certainty.