Over the Season of the Glorious Cross, according to our Maronite Lectionary, we are greeted with Sunday Gospel passages that focus on the final judgement.
In the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after the Glorious Cross, Jesus tells the parable of the ten bridesmaids. The setting of the parable is a wedding banquet. The story invites us to be part of this great occasion. It is about the absolute demand to be ready, while being responsible and accountable.
Those women who came along carrying their lamps are described as “wise” or “foolish”. What differentiates a wise person from a foolish person is that the wise “took flasks of oil with their lamps”. Our faith needs to be active and alive if we are to get through the dark times.
Psalm 119:105 proclaims: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Wisdom is the willingness to see clearly what is happening around us, an alertness and readiness for the task at hand. It is being ready for the call.
On the other hand, the foolish women had come empty-handed with lamps that gave no light. These women were there, but perhaps not all there! They came, but without planning ahead. They were not ready for the long haul. Those who have no real commitment to any cause, who simply go with the flow, do things half-heartedly. Yet, faith cannot be half-hearted. To see the bridegroom, they had to desire it. Being without light is to go out in darkness, oblivious and ignorant to reality. They had not been a source of light and hope for those in darkness.
Let us digress here a moment, as we are reminded of St Charbel. One of this Maronite saint’s miracles involved him lighting an oil lamp that had been mischievously filled with water by another monk. To everyone’s surprise, St Charbel was able to create light out of an impossible situation.
That challenge is open to all of us. Will we be wise in how we use what is given to us?
The five bridesmaids think their failure to plan ahead can be easily resolved by taking from others or relying on handouts. “Give us some of your oil.” The “wise” bridesmaids respond to the request with a firm “no!” They reason soundly that sharing the oil will leave all of them without enough light to lead them ahead.
Sometimes we need to stop covering up for others, cease from enabling their laziness, and take a firm stand.
The foolish bridesmaids had to learn the hard way that if they continued to idle through life, ultimately they would regret it deeply. The message Jesus gives us is to know where our heart’s desire lies and then take appropriate action to get to where we truly want to be.
Life will bless us when we show initiative, perseverance, passion, and love. We are invited to the wedding banquet. We are welcomed into God’s presence if we journey in life, following the light of Christ.
However, like those ten bridesmaids, there are times we become drowsy and sleep. Each of us will go through phases in life where our enthusiasm wanes. We drift off course and lose touch with God. St Augustine expresses the regret of many of us when he wrote, “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within, and I was in the external world.”
So the parable ends with the warning, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour”. What demands our attention, time and presence? How much do we “keep awake” for God?
We remember the Divine Liturgy of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the Prayer of Forgiveness which the Congregation hears on Sunday, “May we find refuge in the shadow of your cross on the great day of your second coming”.
So, as we travel through this season in our Maronite calendar, we focus our attention, like the wise bridesmaids, on ensuring our lamps are always lit, so that we can enter into the wedding banquet of the second coming.
Sr Margaret Ghosn MSHF is a Maronite Sister of the Holy Family.
