Jesus exhorts us not to keep to ourselves the gifts that God has given us, but rather to use them generously for the good of others, especially those most in need of our help...
In short, everything in God’s plan that makes each of us a priceless and unrepeatable good, a living and breathing asset, must be cultivated and invested in order to grow.
--Pope Leo XIV
Image source: https://www.littleaussie.com.au/post/share-home-grown-fruit-and-veggies
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Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
brought no oil with them,
but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.
--Matthew 25
When the bridegroom finally comes, all the virgins awaken and trim their lamps in order to have wicks the correct size so that the flame isn’t too tall, putting black smoke stains on the glass lamps. The foolish virgins realize too late that they don’t have enough oil, thus declaring to all that they are not prepared.
What stands out in my mind is how long it seems to take the foolish virgins to realize they don’t have enough oil and are not ready to meet the Bridegroom, their Savior. Isn’t that one of the most important things we should be doing: looking towards our Savior?
The last words of our reading today sends a vital message, a true life lesson (at least into my heart). The message is: Stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour. This is not about doing good deeds that will balance out our poor behavior. This is not about some sort of tallying system (the Good & the Bad) in a Book of Reckoning up in heaven. This reading and many other readings speak about the futility of trying to “earn” your way into heaven, into a good relationship with God.
What is important is that at any given moment we need to be in a right relationship with God, and we do that by seeking, by finding, and by serving God in every single experience or encounter we have throughout every day.
--Jackie Bacon,
OLMC Communion Service,
November 22, 2022
Image source 1: https://tomperna.org/2013/08/30/the-bridegroom-ten-maidens-and-a-marriage-feast/
Image source 2: Parable of the Ten Virgins, window, St. Ulrich d'Altenstadt, France, https://www.facebook.com/martine.gilhard/posts/28945393791748973/
One of the moments when we feel our own weakness most acutely is in times of sorrow. Grief has a way of stripping away our illusions of self-sufficiency. When faced with loss, disappointment, illness or death, we often discover that no amount of planning, strength or determination can shield us from pain. It is precisely in such moments that today’s Gospel becomes especially consoling. Jesus does not promise that his disciples will never suffer; rather, he promises that they will never suffer alone.
Paul Cézanne’s La Douleur (Sorrow) captures this with extraordinary sensitivity. The painting depicts Mary Magdalene overwhelmed by grief after the crucifixion of Christ. Her head is bowed, her body seems weighed down by sadness, and the entire composition is infused with a profound sense of loss. Yet Cézanne appears to hint at something more. Above her head are three swirling, flame-like forms that resemble tongues of fire. They evoke the image of the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost. It is as if the artist is reminding us that even in the darkest moments of grief, God never abandons us. The Spirit hovers quietly over our sorrow, not always removing the pain, but accompanying us through it.
Is it not Wisdom, who spirits our gardens and oceans as we play in the abundant beauty that surrounds us?
Is it not Wisdom, who sits at our kitchen table as we discuss the events of the day, measuring our wealth by what we share with others?
Is it not Wisdom, who plays in our sandboxes with our children when generosity is taught, forgiveness is given, and justice is rewarded?
Is it not She, who helps us keep a compassionate silence in the face of suffering?
Yes, Holy Wisdom delights in us.
We will never understand the mystery that the poet of Proverbs explores, but if we sit in silence with the barn doors open wide, Wisdom will feed our imaginations so that our spirits will rise and be able to enter into the dance of praise and gratitude. And don’t worry. Even if our legs are a bit old, we’ll be able to join in the dance because we know the steps by heart.
--Sr. Patricia Bruno OP
Image source: Emily K. Grieves, Wisdom’s Table (2017). https://www.emilykgrievesart.com/images/wisdoms-table
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The condition for being prepared for the encounter with the Lord is not only faith, but a Christian life abundant with love and charity for our neighbour. If we allow ourselves to be guided by what seems more comfortable, by seeking our own interests, then our life becomes barren, incapable of giving life to others, and we accumulate no reserve of oil for the lamp of our faith.
--Pope Francis
Image source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1323834017/christ-oil-lamp-faith-israel-christian
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"Then the door is locked.
Afterwards the other virgins come and say,
'
Lord, Lord, open the door for us!'
But he says in reply,
'Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.'"
And in that moment, we realize this parable is all about knowing. Our hearts wrench hearing those words. We do not want to hear them spoken to us. We do not want to see his face as he closes the door in ours. We do not want to be the foolish virgins.
And this is exactly what Jesus needs us to realize. He needs us to get in touch with that desire. The desire to know and be known. We want to be wise. We want wisdom.
--Paula Rush
Image source: William Blake, The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (ca. 1799-1800), https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/340853
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My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God…
Have we learned to thirst for God’s wisdom?
We start with a story. There are two characters. One chooses wisdom; one is Wisdom. The author of the Book of Wisdom personifies its subject in order to draw his readers into the story: Resplendent and unfading is wisdom… Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed, for he shall find her sitting by his gate. The one looking for wisdom is actively seeking her out, and of course the wisdom with whom he desires relationship is the Divine Wisdom of God. Our relationship with God, the Book of Wisdom suggests, is essential to our well-being, and so the sage thirsts for that wisdom, a quest Psalm 63 captures well: O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts. The psalmist knows that divine kindness is a greater good than life, and that in relationship with God his life is blessed.
But in what frame of mind do we pursue this relationship? In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the ten virgins (or bridesmaids), five of whom were foolish while five were wise. The foolish young women brought no oil with them, and eventually their lamps went out. The wise bridesmaids, on the other hand realized that, if, while they waited for the bridegroom, their lamps went out, they would be unable to fulfill their role in the relationship. They were ready; they were open to relationship; they were prepared to come to the feast!
Like the wise bridesmaids, we must be ready to encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, our communion feast. It’s about being conscious and intentional. It’s a choice. And if, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep, along with all living believers, to eternal union with him at the feast of heaven. Thus we shall always be with the Lord! But first, we need the wisdom to trust in relationship, open to and longing for the Lord’s presence in our lives always, here and now, full of hope in his promise and ready to meet him when he comes!
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
We
bloomed in Spring.
Our bodies
are the leaves of God.
The apparent seasons of life and death
our eyes can suffer;
But our souls, dear, I will just say this forthright:
They are God
Himself,
we will never
perish
unless He does.
―St. Teresa of Avila,
I Will Just Say This
(trans. Daniel Ladinsky)
Image source: https://faith.yale.edu/media/how-to-read-teresa-of-avila
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Our goal must be infinite, not the finite.
The infinite is our homeland.
Heaven has been waiting for us forever.
--St. Carlo Acutis
Human hearts are created to love deeply and fully, to experience the depth of divine desire, and to love as they have first been loved. Holiness, sanctity, sainthood: … these words do not refer to an élite cadre of super-human heroes or to a chilly, inhuman piety; they are not reserved for religious professionals or for individuals who are ‘not of this world’. Holiness is the destiny of all human beings. Sanctity is simply the deep realization of the life given over to Love. The saints are all those who give their hearts to Love’s promptings. And all are created for and invited into the mystery of the divine and human world where heart speaks gently to heart.
--Dr. Wendy Wright,
Heart Speaks to Heart
Today is the Solemnity of All Saints!
Image source: John August Swanson, Ascent (2014), https://johnaugustswanson.com/catalog/ascent/?srsltid=AfmBOopHF3VTXxF2b0d05eib7NXWI7EnIt1ZrxjvA0zvp2JWszLKUA16
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The saints feared nothing; if they fell, they picked themselves up again. The saint is not he who does not fall, but he who always picks himself up after every fall, without getting discouraged. And so if you find some obstacle which slows your step, seek it out bravely, and when you have found it, whether by the aid of God or that of your spiritual guide, courageously apply the remedy.
--Venerable Caroline Carré de Malberg,
qtd. in La Première Mère,
by Fr. Henri Chaumont
Image source: Georges de La Tour, St. Peter, Repentant, also known as The Tears of St. Peter (1645). The artist depicts St. Peter as a man stricken with remorse, meditating in the darkness, the space lit only by the tentative light of a lantern near his bare feet. The rooster recalls Jesus’ prophecy: Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times. Yet, in spite of his actions, Peter became the founder of the Church. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Georges_de_La_Tour_-_Saint_Peter_Repentant_-_1951.454_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art.jpg
I am in the store touching things.
Linen napkins, a blue bowl.
The world is on fire and I am choosing
between two kinds of soap.
Everyone here is doing this, filling carts
with small comforts while somewhere a child
goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats,
while men make decisions about who gets to live.
I know what this is, this careful arranging
while everything collapses.
This is how we survive.
And also how we disappear.
--Alessandra Olanow
Image source: https://www.latimes.com/style/la-hm-1213-thriftyke-pg-photogallery.html
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Were you raised in a fear-the-world church
or in a love-your-neighbor church?
--David French
[Matthew’s] Gospel puts us on very holy ground, since it features the Word of God himself telling us what stands at the heart of the law. The Pharisees pose, as a kind of game, the following question: “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” It was a favorite exercise of the rabbis to seek out the “canon within the canon,” the law that somehow clarified the whole of the law.
Jesus gives his famous answer: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
It’s finally about love, and the love of God and neighbor are inextricably bound to one another. If we follow the law, but don’t love, we’re wasting our time. If we love God, but hate our neighbors, we’re wasting our time.
Why are the two loves so tightly connected? Because Jesus is not just God. He is the God-man, the one in whom divinity and humanity come together. Therefore, it’s impossible to love him as God without loving the humanity that he’s created and embraced.
--Bishop Robert Barron
Image source: Maurycy Gottlieb, Christ Teaching in Capernaum (1878-1879), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurycy_Gottlieb_-_Christ_preaching_at_Capernaum_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
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To Love your God with your whole being is daunting in and of itself. However, today’s Gospel issues one more challenge to us after quoting the passage from Deuteronomy. It challenges us to love your neighbor as yourself. This, he reminds us, is worth more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.
This command should stop us in our tracks. Love our neighbor as ourselves? What does that look like? Who is our neighbor?
It takes great courage to love our neighbors as ourselves. In a country and world, divided by fear and hatred of anyone deemed “other,” we are called to see every person as neighbor... regardless of their country of origin, gender or sexuality, economic status, education or employment level, how they live or how they worship. We must be open to encounter… to moving beyond fear and hatred… and into community.
May we be beacons of love that brings about justice and peace. May we, as I say in my vow formula, “strive to share the love of Jesus through the message of the Gospel and the witness of my (our) life.” May this be the way we live out our radical call from God. May we have the courage to love God with our whole heart and our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
--Eilis McCulloh, HM
Image source: Gustave Courbet, Le Désespéré (1843), https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/art/features/why-gustave-courbet-still-has-the-power-to-shock-744386.html
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Our quality of life is not measured by what I can do independently, but by who is there to help me. We were made with free choice to live in each other’s context, for each other.
--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Scripture Class, October 12, 2023
You know what sort of people we were among you…
What is the source of our integrity as a people?
One of the most important functions of the scriptures is to help humankind to understand what it means to live in the context of each other, in community. In the Book of Exodus, once the people of Israel reach Mount Sinai, the Lord God spends no small amount of time helping them understand that their identity, and therefore their collective integrity, is based on the relationships they cultivate with God and with one another. You shall not oppress or molest an alien, the Lord tells them. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. Their own memory of what it was like to live in another land, without any rights or possessions or land, should remind them that they were once dependent upon other people’s generosity and good will. Like the Lord God, they themselves must be compassionate, responsible to other because they value the compassion that God and others have shown them, and will imitate it. Psalm 18 invites the people of Israel into the present moment, where they can recognize God’s compassion towards them now – My God, my rock of refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold – and ground themselves in the identity and integrity that relationship builds for them.
When, in Matthew’s Gospel, the scholar of the law asks Jesus, Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?, he does so to test him. Here, the Pharisees have clearly missed the point: their relationship with the Lord God does not depend on the absolutes of Mosaic law, but on the message of love Jesus embodies in their midst, even to the point of loving the very Pharisees who will one day effect his death. Love of God is necessary to love of neighbor, as love of neighbor is necessary to love of God. The love in question here is not a feeling, but an action: to will the good of the other in order to insure the collective identity and integrity of the community. This is how you enter into right relationship with your God, Jesus says: by loving.
Likewise, in his Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul will affirm the righteous conduct of the community that has become imitators of the apostles and of the Lord through their reception of the Word of God. It is the Word that is effective; it transforms, sustains, and is spreading all over the known world. The Word is the source of their integrity – it is their belief in God’s mercy and love, revealed in Christ crucified, revealed in their own life in community. The Word is their integrity – is it ours?
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
To hear CeCe Winans and Terrence Blanchard perform Blessed Assurance in honor of Cicely Tyson, click on the video below:
Image source: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/theater/cicely-tyson-and-blessed-assurance.html?_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&adxnnl=1&emc=edit_th_20130528&adxnnlx=1369763276-4uipPr4qYEURbYzfOo9hxw
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Our lives must be acts of praise and gratitude to the Creator.
Such obligations would indeed be burdensome and dehumanizing if they proceeded from a competitive and needy supreme being, but since they come from the one who cannot compete with us and who stands in need of nothing, they are in fact liberating. The gratitude that we offer to the true God is not absorbed by God but rather breaks against the rock of the divine self-sufficiency, redounding to our benefit.
In one of the prefaces to the Eucharistic prayer in the Roman rite of the Mass, we find this remarkable observation directed toward God: “You have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness but profit us for salvation.”
It is precisely because God has no need of our praise that our act of gratitude is a gift; it is precisely because God’s plenitude cannot be increased that our prayer intensifies rather than compromises our participation in the loop of grace.
--Bishop Robert Barron
Image source: Noah in the ark as the dove returns, from the Catacomb of St. Peter, ca. 2-4 B.C., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah#/media/File:Noah_catacombe.jpg
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Give the Lord glory and honor!
Are we ready to give God thanks, always?
When the Lord God empowers Cyrus, King of Persia, to send the people of Israel home from exile with the wherewithal to rebuild, the people are meant to understand that God is at work through Cyrus, even if Cyrus himself is unaware of this. I am the Lord and there is no other, God announces through the prophet Isaiah. God is at work even when we ourselves are not doing God’s work. This is why we have hope: because God is at work and so we do not despair. Rather, all are to give the Lord glory and honor, as Psalm 96 reminds us, singing a new song that speaks of God’s wondrous deeds to all nations.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees are still blind to all that God is doing in their midst, and so they go off and plot how they might entrap Jesus in speech. But their plan is faulty. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? they ask him. Their thought is that, if Jesus says they should pay the census tax, he would be seen as supporting their oppressor, Rome, whereas if he says they should not pay the census tax, the Roman authorities could arrest him. Instead of responding immediately, Jesus asks them to show him the coin that pays the census tax. The very fact that the Pharisees can readily produce such a coin in itself condemns them. Yet Jesus simply says, Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. And what is it that we owe God? Glory and praise! Jesus is calling upon the Pharisees to open their eyes, their ears, and their heart so that they can see what God is doing right in their midst, and give praise.
The greeting of Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians demonstrates quite clearly the praise that Paul knows is due to God: We give thanks to God always for all of you, Paul says. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy can be with the Thessalonians in spirit, supporting them in their prayers, unceasingly calling to mind the Thessalonians’ work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ. To endure in hope is to continue to follow the gospel even though you are not yet experiencing it in its fullness, allowing God to dwell in you and to work in you. In so doing, the Thessalonians praise God, and so should we, allowing God to continue to speak to us, that our relationship with God might form and deepen over time, hearing the Word and living the gospel with our hearts and with our lives, in praise!
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
Nothing created has ever been able
to fill the heart of man.
God alone can fill it infinitely.
--St. Thomas Aquinas
To return to the king’s command in the parable, the servants are told not only to “go”, but also to “invite”: “Come to the wedding!” (Mt 22:4). Here we can see another, no less important, aspect of the mission entrusted by God. As we can imagine, the servants conveyed the king’s invitation with urgency but also with great respect and kindness. In the same way, the mission of bringing the Gospel to every creature must necessarily imitate the same “style” of the One who is being preached.
--Pope Francis
Image source: Andrey. N. Mironov, Parable of the Wedding Feast (2014). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parable_of_the_Wedding_Feast.jpg
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