Homily for Week 23A, November 12, 2017

I’d like to know something.  How many wise or foolish virgins do we have here today?  Just as I expected , well, you will be happy to know this Gospel is not about wise or foolish virgins.  Have any of you been caught sleeping on the job?  You don’t have to answer that; and you will be pleased to know that this Gospel isn’t about sleeping on the job either.  So, what is this Gospel about?  It is about hope.

A friend of mine said, this doesn’t seem like a Gospel about hope.  Maybe not directly, but indirectly I think it is.  You see, all the virgins, wise and foolish, fall asleep.  Some, the wise ones, had a bit more hope than the foolish — at least they brought some extra oil with them.  None of them seem very excited about the coming of the bridegroom.  Welcoming bridegrooms isn’t their day job and we can imagine them being worn out by whatever labor they may have been involved in.  Another way to look at it is that they probably all wanted to get married, no one has asked them, and here they are being asked, again, to celebrate someone else’s good fortune.

The Bridegroom in this Gospel is Jesus.  Maybe we aren’t all that excited about His coming into our lives, or we have lost hope that He will come into our lives.  We go through the motions, saying our prayers, coming to mass on Sundays, round and round we go and nothing seems to change all that much.  It was the same for the people in the Gospel story.  The entire town got involved in weddings in those days, they ushered many a groom from his house to the house of the bride, celebrated many, many times and not much was changing in their life either.

The question is; “who or what is most important in my life — what gives me hope?”  What, or who glues my life together, gives it shape, form and direction?  We may feel, because we are in church, that we have to say Jesus.  Maybe yes, maybe no, or maybe  just a little bit.  All honest answers.  This is a start. Establishing and deepening a living, daily, relationship with Jesus is very important.

A week ago, this past Friday, I shared with the morning mass people my anxiety about going to get my California drivers license.  I had put it off for over a year.  God I hate going through that process.  I’ve never not passed one of those tests; heck I have never had a ticket or an accident, and yet I felt hopeless to get another one.  It is all very silly but there you go; big things I don’t worry about, drivers licenses I do.  What can I say.

I had to pray over the situation but not the way I use to “Oh please Jesus let me have the license, please, please, please.  No, calm meditation was what was needed and it got me to a point where it just didn’t matter whether or not I got the license — it just doesn't matter; and that’s the truth.  I became clear headed with not a worry in the world.  When the woman at the DMV desk remarked “you must be really worried about the test.”  I said nope, not at all.  I was full of hope and confidence because it just didn’t matter.

Prayer, meditation, contemplation can bring me to a place where I know I am loved and cared for:  To a point where I realize I am not dependent on having or not having a license, a particular job, the  right car or the house; we discover that we are fundamentally okay — that we are loved  into hope so we can take on whatever comes our way.  Mind you, these moments don’t last forever which is why we continue to gather here in prayer each week, and on a daily basis — constantly renewing our hope-filled friendship with Jesus who is constantly coming into our lives; so trim your lamps — pray — and welcome the bridegroom.  It will change your life.