Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25:13

The sort of vigilance urged upon us in today’s scripture is different from the worldly type, such as good financial management. The Gospel is talking about the kind that prepares us for the Lord’s coming. We are summoned as Christians to responsible action. When the Lord comes, we must be ready, with our lamps trimmed. We are not summoned simply to stand by and just fade away.

Jesus’ story of the ten wise and ten foolish bridesmaids is downright hilarious. To catch the humor of the story, you have to appreciate the circumstances which were indeed familiar to the listeners. Weddings, as you know, never start on time. There’s always a delay and cars full of wedding guests get caught in traffic. Buttons pop off at the last minute. Flowers wilt. Soloists contract laryngitis. The groom or the bride show up late and they forget to bring the marriage license with them which makes the priest nervous. Perhaps the bridal limousine might surge out of control as happened once in Okeechobee tearing to pieces all the lovely foliage along the church. Not an unimaginable scenario! It happened once at Sacred Heart, and something similar could happen again.

The only reasonable approach to a wedding is to stay calm, and submit to Murphy’s law that if something can go wrong it probably will go wrong and, when that happens, to be prepared and smile about it. Jesus tells this amusing story to encourage us to be watchful and to expect the unexpected. The lighthearted know that unexpected things happen, indeed are bound to happen, and when they do they are awake and ready. The heavyhearted and somber, on the other hand, lose their place in God’s providential scheme of things by not being prepared for the unexpected.

The message of today’s amusing story is an invitation to remain alert for the Lord’s coming in the many unexpected happenings of our day-to-day lives. Look around you; see what you must be ready for. Are you prepared for the unexpected guest? Are you responsive to the needs of the stranger? Are you eager for the many surprises sprung by a child? Are you attentive to the needs and joys of your marriage partner? Are generous to the needy? Are you receptive to the insights and gifts of others? If you can answer “yes” to those questions, then you are awake and ready for the Lord.

Fr. Hugh Duffy