Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you; go
rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.
“It’s mine: you can’t have it”. We tell our
children: “Be nice: share.” This works pretty well until the thing that the
other child wants is your child’s hair, nose, eyes or ears. There are things
which can be shared and things which cannot. So the Gospel this tells us: there
are things which can be shared and things which cannot.
Perhaps
there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to the dealers and buy
for yourselves.
It doesn’t seem very nice unless of course the foolish virgins are asking the
wise for something that they cannot give.
The parable of the ten virgins in the Gospel
this Sunday is a difficult because there are at least three theories of
interpretation all of them backed by the names of great Fathers and Doctors of
the Church. This Gospel is often read on the feasts of holy virgins as an
exhortation to the religious life. St. Thomas Aquinas held that the ten virgins
represented all of humanity, the wise virgins being the faithful and the unwise
those outside the Church. But the most useful interpretation, I think, is that
of St. Gregory the Great, who said “holy Church is said to be like ten virgins.”
For one thing we should notice that all ten virgins for
the most part share the very same advantages: they are all virgins, they all
have lamps, they are all waiting for the bridegroom, they all fall asleep on
the job. The one and only difference between the wise and unwise is the oil
supply.
This Gospel comes to us on the heels of the
Church’s annual celebration of the great and wonderful mystery of the communion
of saints, All Saints and All Souls. We share in the prayers and love of the
Church Militant, the Church Expectant, and the Church Triumphant.
O Savior Jesu, not alone
We plead for help before thy throne
So runs the hymn for Matins on All Saints Day.
‘Not alone’. We are the beneficiaries of the prayers of the living and the
departed, of Saints beyond numbering. We
are surrounded by ‘a great cloud of witnesses’. Not only that for the communion
of saints is not only a sharing of holy persons but also a sharing of ‘holy
goods.’ The Sacraments, the Liturgy, the
preaching and teaching of the Church, the experience of God’s mercy and love
and grace. We are privileged.
What can go wrong? Quite simply what the wise
virgins tell the foolish: we have not bought oil enough for ourselves. There
are things which can be shared and things which cannot and one thing which
cannot be shared is the personal responsibility of faith. For all our
privileges and advantages we still have to buy into the whole thing with
personal faith. That is what ignites our lamps and keeps them burning.
I have to confess that when I hear people going
on and on about a personal relation with Jesus I wince because usually what that
means is an emotional experience according to someone else s definition of a
personal relationship with Jesus. There are all sorts of ways in which folks
come to personal faith besides emotional meltdown, through the intellect and
through an act of the will. I have made myself unpopular in some Evangelism or
Renewal programs because I object to manipulating people to get them to
believe. The motive is no doubt good but the Gospel says ‘buy for ourselves’. We
have to appropriate faith for ourselves.
Catholic Christians
believe that as surely as Evangelical Christians. But it is not something that
you do just once. It is something that you have to keep on doing again and again.
Our Lady had to say “be it unto me according to thy word” not once but over and
over again: on the road to Bethlehem, fleeing into Egypt, at Cana of Galilee,
at the foot of the Cross.
Again and again we
have to decide that Jesus is the One, that it is all true, not just some
attractive possibility but the Truth, the Way and the Life.
That is the only way
for me to become we. Personal responsibility, personal faith in Jesus Christ,
the one whom the Father has sent, the one who died and rose for me and will
come again in glory is not the end of the story but the beginning, the opening
of the door to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.
Perhaps
there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to the dealers and buy
for yourselves.
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