Thirty Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

If you had to pick: would you rather be wise, or would you rather be a fool?
Again, you choose: would you rather live with wise people, or foolish people, as your spouse, a family member, or a friend?

These aren’t hard questions: being wise is better than being foolish. Wisdom widens our wonder, wins us wealth in relationships, and wins over foolishness many other ways. Foolishness flakes away the fabric of friendship, frustrates our future, and sooner or later foils all our fun. In the abstract, you’d think every human being would choose wisdom over foolishness.

But let’s face it: it’s hard to become wise in real life. It’s so much easier to be foolish! Foolishness comes pretty naturally to me, and maybe for you, too. It seems like every day there are more and more stories in the headlines and on social media of people acting foolish, doing stupid or sinful things, and sometimes even growing in popularity because of it for a while before their foolishness does them in for good.  

Not wanting to seem judgmental, we might adopt a live and let live mentality. We might say or think, “People are free to do as they please, and if they want to be foolish, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else, it’s no skin off my nose.” But the reality is that stupid and sinful choices in any of us affect us all; even small, secret sins have an effect. No man or woman is an island. Foolishness sets a bad example for others, and again, it ruins our fun in the end.

The parable from today’s Gospel is good news, inspires us to be wise, even if we’re frequently foolish. But to listen to the heart of Jesus’ message today, we must get beyond the initial unfairness it seems to present. We do question: How could half of the virgins be locked out when they waited so long? Isn’t it the groom’s fault for being so late?

Furthermore, what’s with the selfish five virgins, how can they just say “ha-ha, go to the merchants, you losers,” isn’t it part of being wise to share and be kind with those in need?
Like a lot of the parables in this part of Matthew’s Gospel, this one is so striking because these seemingly odd details grab our attention. Let’s look at some of these details and then go deep into the parable.

Weddings in this era were very different than they are today. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there were no exact start-times for weddings in Jesus’ culture. The word would go out that the wedding was taking place, and people pretty much waited around for them to start. To not take supplies like flasks of oil with you to wait for a wedding, knowing full well you’d be waiting a long time, is the epitome of foolishness. And if that seems unrealistic or like they’re set up to fail, remember it’s a parable, a story using symbols. These symbols are important and teach us truth. Those lamps the virgins carry? They are a symbol of faith, the light of faith. The flask of oil? They represent the relationship we have with God, the interior life of our faith, that interior relationship with the Lord in prayer, and lived in virtuous deeds in our real life. So the wise virgins aren’t being selfish for not sharing with the foolish ones, they are saying in not so many words that you can’t share your relationship with God, that’s intimately personal, non-transferrable to another. 

With this background in mind, we see that this parable isn’t so much about any earthly wedding (after all, marriage is a lifelong bond between one man and one woman, not one man and ten virgins or any other combination of persons). The parable is about being wise or being foolish in our everyday choices because they matter in light of eternity, we prepare for the future by wisely avoiding foolishness now, so as to be proven wise both now and at the hour of our death. This death is symbolically depicted as the sleep that all the virgins find themselves in as they wait for the coming groom, the groom who is Jesus Christ, who will come to wed heaven and earth together in His Church, His Kingdom. Jesus will come at the end of our lives to invite us into the banquet of heaven, this beautiful, “beatific vision” our faith talks about, or whether we are able to bear His loving face and be drawn into that embrace, or turn away in hatred and fear at the God we didn’t have time for, were too foolish, too distracted to get to know.

Jesus knows us and loves us intimately, personally. When the bridegroom seems to rebuke the five foolish virgins saying he doesn’t know them, what he’s really saying is that it’s too late for them to live the wonderful relationship he has offered to them at every point of their lives.

That’s why it’s so important to live wisely and not foolishly. At the end of our lives, we will not be able to avoid reality, distract it away by one of the millions of distractions our lives afford us. Jesus invites us to love, to wisdom, to thrive in relationship. Will we respond? Or will we just do what is easier, what everyone else might seem to be doing, and fall into foolishness?

I stand here more a fool than wise. If I’m honest, I’ve got to admit the number one foolishness in my life: letting screens sabotage my social life and sadden my soul more than I’d want to admit. Even seemingly harmful things like sports updates and news articles, they become this huge distraction for me. My faith is not on fire as it could be, I’m often not seeking wisdom because I’m just so distracted, so overwhelmed, so unfocused on relationships to thrive, let alone to cherish and cultivate that most important relationship, the relationship of faith with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But while there is life, there is hope! I may not have the full flask of oil I need right now to be ready to wait for the coming of Jesus the bridegroom, but I’m not dead yet. If you feel unprepared for eternity at this present moment, have hope, we’re not dead yet! We may not be wise, but we’re fools to not reserve the right to get wiser!

And the only wise way to live, the only truly great way to spend our days here on earth is to live our Catholic faith in our real lives. To let God into our foolishness, to “wisen us up” from within. This means not keeping God at Mass and then saying goodbye to him to go on with our real life, as if God were a wet dog to be tied up in his doghouse, lest he mess up our personal space. Wisdom widens when we unleash the Gospel, unchain Jesus to bless our real life, to heal us, and to give us hope. We can be wise, but it will mean facing reality. It will mean addressing the way we spend our time, the way our relationships really are, even if that means acknowledging dysfunction, breakdowns of communication, avoidance, and past hurt. This will mean allowing Jesus to pursue us by being open to Him in prayer. Listen to His voice in our conscience revealing where we are not innocent, not virgins and have need of the healing that is repentance.
Our first reading gives us a path forward, a plan for the week ahead, for the rest of our lives, to avoid foolishness and experience wisdom and wonderful living. Wisdom is attainable, it can be experienced and even achieved in our lives. Wisdom pursues us, pops into the small moments of our days, it’s that drop of the Divine in our dread and murmur of mercy in our late-night malaise. Wisdom has solicitude for us, which means wisdom thinks about us, desires for us to thrive, to avoid the foolish farce that inevitably unfolds if we don’t fashion our lives in the faith.

Jesus is true Wisdom come in the flesh, and He has redeemed foolish humanity. Wisdom Himself invites us to wisdom by being in relationship with Him. He chooses us to be wise sons and daughters in His Kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven.
The journey from foolishness to wisdom isn’t easy, and it won’t happen automatically. Wisdom seeks us out, but won’t force itself on us. We have to be open, make space for God, for good.

I ask you to consider making concrete, intentional time for silence and contemplation in our prayer life. Yes, we may fall asleep, yes, it may seem boring, but it is the only way to peace in our world, the only way to achieve wisdom, and also the path to heaven. Whether you stop by our Adoration chapel on the way to or from work or you start your morning with a prayer or a part of the Bible, I ask you to set aside at least 10 minutes of your day to focused prayer, whether individually or as a family. We can do it, we can be wise, even if we start with 30 seconds a day or 1 minute a day and work our way up! Even if we pray during routine tasks like driving, teeth-brushing, or showering. Invite God into the real life of our days, and watch how the foolishness fades away and wisdom begins to win. Yes, it may mean a change from the flowing foolishness that will fester if we don’t face the facts. But there is hope! You can start today! Welcome the wisdom that can make all things wonderful, the wisdom that is Jesus Christ dwelling in your soul, wisening up the little moments of our real lives!