32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 62; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
12th November 2023
In today’s gospel we hear the parable of the 10 bridesmaids with their lamps awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom late at night. Presumably they are on standby waiting to accompany the bridegroom to the bride so the couple might then proceed together to the wedding feast. The bridegroom does not arrive when expected so all ten bridesmaids fall asleep. At midnight, word comes that the bridegroom has arrived: ‘Go out and meet him.’
Listen at https://soundcloud.com/frank-brennan-6/homily-121123
Five of the bridesmaids are wise; and five are foolish. The folly is not in their having fallen asleep. The wise did the same. Their folly is the failure to have sufficient oil to replenish their lamps. Some scripture scholars think that the lamps represent faith, and the oil represents good works. So there would be no way the wise bridesmaids could share their good works with the foolish ones who have done none. That may be right, but not necessarily so. Scripture scholar Raymond Brown does not go for any of this over-representation of the elements of the parable. He says this parable ‘illustrates well that often a parable makes only one point. If this parable were a general picture of ideal Christian life, the wise virgins should have had the charity to share their oil with the foolish.’[1] The parable emphasises simply the need to be ever watchful, a favourite theme of Matthew.
Those of us seeking entry to the kingdom would be wise to be prepared. The first reading from the Book of Wisdom provides a poetic description of wisdom: ‘Wisdom is bright, and does not grow dim. By those who love her she is readily seen, and found by those who look on her…Watch for her early and you will have no trouble, your will find her sitting at your gates.’
Earlier this week, the new Chief Justice of Australia, Stephen Gageler, was sworn in. With delightful self-deprecating humour, he told the packed court room: ‘My family’s previous most momentous engagement with the legal system was in 1814, at the Old Bailey. It did not go so well. The family journey from there and then to here and now is, I believe – and I hope will remain – a quintessentially Australian story. No one is self‑made, least of all me.’
He went on to describe his early life:
‘I am the product of decent, hardworking parents who raised me happily in a small rural community. I am a product of a long‑established system of local state school education. The one‑teacher primary school in the one‑room weatherboard building where my father was educated before me and where I started and completed most of my primary school education was established in 1877, barely a decade after Sir Henry Parkes’ Public Schools Act of 1866 and barely two decades after the introduction of responsible government in New South Wales. My attendance at the same local high school that both of my parents had attended, some 40 kilometres away, was facilitated by a one‑and‑a‑half‑hour each way trek most days for six years across partially‑sealed roads in a government‑funded school bus.’[2]
He then had the opportunity to be the first of his family to get to university before then commencing work in the public service.
He told us: ‘At every step that has led to this point, I have benefited from accessible structures and transparent processes which have created pathways and presented opportunities to learn and to serve. And at every step, I have benefited from the encouragement and example of individuals: some extraordinary, most delightfully ordinary, all considerate and generous.’
None of us can grow wise on our own. We need community. We need structures. We need relationships. We need pathways. Or to use the language of the Synod, we need a mode of being Church that integrates communion, mission and participation. If only our Church would provide accessible structures and transparent processes which could create pathways presenting opportunities for all to learn and to serve – so that all might have lamps and the necessary oil to greet the bridegroom when he comes. In our Church, we will encounter the occasional living saint and we have the inspiring stories of many canonised saints. But most of the time we will be benefiting from those around us who are delightfully ordinary, considerate and generous.
How can each of us become a more wise torch bearer with oil to spare rather than a foolish torchbearer whose oil is spent? How can we be sufficiently prepared so that it is safe to sleep when we know not the hour when the bridegroom will come? We need to hold together the unity of truth and love. The Synthesis Report of the Synod tells us: ‘If we use doctrine harshly and with a judgmental attitude, we betray the Gospel; if we practise mercy “on the cheap”, we do not convey God’s love. …. This unity can only be achieved by patiently following the path of accompaniment.’[3] In Church and in life, we will always find ourselves in the company of both wise and foolish bridesmaids. It’s a lifetime commitment to find pathways and opportunities for us and those around us to learn and to serve.
In the conclusion of the Synthesis Report of the Synod, we are told: ‘Jesus chose to speak in parables in order to announce the Reign of God. He found images to speak of the mystery of God in the ordinary experiences of human life: the natural world, the work-place, elements of the everyday. In this way, he let us know that the Reign of God transcends us yet is not distant from us. Either we see God’s Reign in the things of this world, or we will never see it.’
Like Mary at the Annunciation, we ask, ‘How will this happen?’ The Synthesis Report says: ‘There is only one answer: remain in the shadow of the Spirit and allow yourself to be enveloped by his power.’[4]
My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.
O God, you are my God, for you I long;
for you my soul is thirsting.
My body pines for you
like a dry, weary land without water.
My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.
So I gaze on you in the sanctuary
to see your strength and your glory.
For your love is better than life,
my lips will speak your praise.
My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.
Fr Frank Brennan SJ is the Rector of Newman College, Melbourne, and the former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). He was appointed a peritus at the Fifth Plenary Council of the Australian Catholic Church. Fr Frank’s latest book is An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Considering a Constitutional Bridge, Garratt Publishing, 2023.
[1] Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, 1997, p. 199.
[2] See http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/other/HCATrans/2023/151.html
[3] XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, First Session, A Synodal Church in Mission: Synthesis Report, p. 30.
[4] Ibid, p. 39.
