(Thirty-second Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on November 12, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63:2-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirty-second Sunday 2023]
Late, late so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
No light had we; for that we do repent;
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
No light: so late! and dark and chill the night!
O let us in, that we may find the light!
Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now.
Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet?
O let us in, tho’late, to kiss his feet!
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.
Those words of Alfred Lord
Tennyson, the famous English poet, allude to the parable we just heard from
Matthew 25. And they express what I
would call the ultimate consequence of neglect. Happily, none of us has ever experienced this
consequence, and hopefully none of us ever will. Now the parable itself may sound a bit
strange to us, but it would not have sounded strange to the people who first
heard it. That’s because Jesus was
speaking about the ordinary wedding customs of his day and using these as a
vehicle to speak about “the four last things.”
Hopefully all of us know what those are. We should, if we've studied our catechism
lessons well. The four last things are:
death, judgment, heaven and hell. And by
the way, they haven’t changed since Vatican II.
The four last things were, are and always will be the four last
things!
The wise virgins who had oil in their lamps when the bridegroom arrived symbolize all those who are ready for judgment when Jesus comes for them (either at the end of their earthly lives or at the end of time). The foolish virgins represent all those who are not ready for that decisive moment. But what I find extremely significant is the reason why these virgins are judged unworthy, why they are told (in Tennyson’s words), “Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.” It’s not because they were a bunch of wild, crazy, cannibalistic serial killers. It’s because they were slothful and negligent. They simply failed to get oil for their lamps. That was it. Now--it’s interesting—I read several commentaries on this text in preparation for this homily, and almost all of the authors said that the oil in the story symbolizes good works. Well, at the risk of disagreeing with several prominent biblical scholars, I think there’s more to it than that. Most people—even very evil people—do some good works now and again. Every once in a while, at least, they get it right and do something nice. But Jesus tells us at the beginning of the parable that these virgins brought no oil whatsoever! If the oil simply represented good works, I think Jesus would have said that they had brought “a little bit” of oil with them. Not enough, of course, but at least a tiny bit (signifying the few good things they had done). The fact that he says they brought none at all leads me to believe that the oil actually signifies what the Church would call sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is the grace that makes us pleasing to God—the grace we first receive at Baptism. It’s the grace we lose if and when we commit a mortal sin, but which is happily restored when we make a good confession. If a person dies without this grace in his soul, he cannot enter God’s eternal kingdom. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now!
This is something I’ve thought about more and more in recent years, with all my health issues. First Parkinson’s; then prostate cancer; now multiple myeloma. It makes you realize how fragile and short this life really is, and that we always need to be ready to meet the Lord.
These virgins knew they weren’t ready. They knew they didn’t have the oil they needed; which means they represent all those who know they need to repent and go to confession because they’ve missed Mass without good reason or committed some other serious sin. But even though they knew they needed oil, these foolish virgins still decided to postpone their trip to the store. And what was their reasoning? They figured they had plenty of time. Which, of course, is the very same reason why some people avoid repentance and confession! By the way, I think this is one of the most effective lies that Satan uses on human beings: the lie that says, “Take your time. There’s no rush. There’s always tomorrow.” Well, we all know of instances where certain people looked forward to tomorrow, and tomorrow never came. They died, unexpectedly, that very day. This parable also reminds us that when we leave this life we will be judged on our own merits, not on the merits of others. As St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “The lives of all of us are to be revealed before the tribunal of Christ so that each one may receive his recompense, good or bad, according to his life in the body.” On Judgment Day we won’t be able to borrow (or buy) sanctifying grace from someone else. We will either have it, or we won’t.
We all know that neglect has consequences. We know that from our daily experiences. For example, if we neglect our physical health, our blood pressure goes up, our waistline goes out, and our risk of having a heart attack or a stroke goes through the roof! If we’re a student and we neglect to do our homework, our grades go down, and our parents’ blood pressure goes through the roof! If we neglect a family member or friend in some way, our relationship with that person gets damaged, perhaps severely.
From common, daily experiences like these the Lord wants us to learn not to neglect our souls! That’s the “bottom line message” of this homily! Don’t neglect your soul—ever! God wants us to examine our consciences frequently and honestly, so that we can take swift action against our sins and avoid what I referred to earlier as “the ultimate consequence of neglect.” In case you haven’t figured it out yet, that ultimate consequence is hell—eternal separation from God. Jesus, our Savior, died to give us life—eternal life. But that life is not automatic. Eternal life is the consequence of vigilance—of standing guard over the gift of sanctifying grace first given to us in Baptism. Sanctifying grace is what you might call “spiritual oil”; it’s the spiritual oil that burns, not just for a day, a month or a year—but FOREVER! It’s the spiritual oil that allows us to gain entrance to the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb! Today I pray that each and every one of us will have an abundance of THAT oil in our lamps, whenever our time comes to leave this mortal life and go out to meet the eternal bridegroom—who is, of course, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
