The Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
There was a dark period in my life of which I wasn’t even aware. However, friends and parish staff around me were. I was going on retreat and one of them gave me a book. They said, “Read Chapter 5”. Why did the person give me that particular book? In an instant, one paragraph of chapter 5 made all the difference for me. How did they know?
We’ve watched notable politicians consider whether the time is opportune or not to run for public office or seen people thrust into positions. History has shown us what can happen when the right person rises at the right time. Consider Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine. John XXIII as Bishop of Rome.
We encounter many people throughout our lives. Each has something to offer us. We have also experienced when a person has missed life’s opportunities. Have you looked back and regretted letting a person into your life not recognizing what they may have been able to offer you. I have.
This ability to recognize, to be aware, is wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge. It has little to do with success. Wisdom is a way of seeing things that come to us. Wisdom does not play hard to get; she wants to be found.
In this light there are aspects of the parable of the ten virgins that are troubling. Aren’t the wise virgins cold and lacking in generosity for not sharing their oil when asked? How hurtful are the words of the bridegroom, “I do not know you.” while slamming the door shut?
But consider this, the parable speaks of wise and foolish virgins, however is that true?
If wisdom needs to be sought and is easily found, do we not have five virgins who are wise and five as yet needing to seek wisdom? Do they not first encounter wisdom in taking the guidance of the wise virgins. Moreover, when they found wisdom, they returned with lamps lit. But therein lies the snag.
A fruit and companion of wisdom is recognizing the “right time”. The Greeks have two words for time, chronos and kairos. Chronos is clock and calendar time. Chronos is a cruel and burdensome master. We never have enough of it. It causes us to be impatient and always having to be on the go. Kairos, however, is a richer concept of time. Scripture use the phrase, the fullness of time – the right time! There are situations, people, and choices within life that if they come too early or too late the opportunity is missed, never to return.
Why did God become a human being in Jesus of Nazareth in backwater 1st century Roman Palestine instead of 21st century first world with all our technology, communication and transportation? Because 1st century Roman Palestine was “the right time” and place, was the fullness of time. For the Incarnation to take place earlier or later and in another part of the world would have somehow been a missed moment to God’s mind.
That book, if it came into my life sooner or later would have made no impact on me. If I had only realized what Dr. C had to offer me in graduate school, life might have been richer for me.
History shows us how often Christians have not recognized the hour when we should have acted or we delayed too long. 1517 is the date given as the beginning of the Reformation. The Council of Trent was not convened until 1545; 38 years too late to avoid the divisions. It was not until 1962, 450 later[!], that many believe the Catholic Church finally responded to the reformers at the Second Vatican Council. Could the divisions in the western church have been avoided? Was the “fullness of time” missed as we now struggle back toward Christian unity?
In a poem by T. S. Elliot he asks, “Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church? When the Church is no longer regarded, not even opposed, and men have forgotten All gods except Usury, Lust and Power”.
Elliot asks an ever-challenging question of the Church. How accurately Elliot describes our present times. The Church is ignored and money, lust and power reign. We want to blame secularism for many of our woes but do we not, as begun at the Second Vatican Council, need to enter the sacred silence of self-reflection? Have we, are we, failing humanity?
In summoning the Second Vatican Council, John XXIII used the phrase “signs of the times” borrowing from Matthew’s Gospel [Matthew 16:3]. John invited the Church to listen and to learn from the world, that is, learn to read the “signs of the times” and then speak and act with wisdom. The world is not our enemy. The world is the Lord’s and all its fullness the Psalm 24 out.
Some authors and theologians view the recent Synod of Bishops on Synodality as a continuation of Vatican II. Through this process, are we not like the foolish virgins seeking wisdom in learning how to listen to each other, to the world and to the Holy Spirit? A Synod without precedent. Bishops sitting with religious, laity, women and men. Might this be the right time for this lesson? Otherwise, we may miss kairos, the fullness of time moment. Situations like this only come once. They cannot be repeated. Thus, oil cannot be shared and doors are locked.
Will we seek, both in our personal lives and in the life of the Church, wisdom?
Will we, the People of God, recognize the hour in which we live?
Will we act accordingly?
David Wm. Mickiewicz 