32nd Sunday Year A

The Wise and the Foolish Virgins by Bishop Barron

• 2nd letter – earliest of Paul’s letters. Wonderful snapshot in these very primitive Christian communities. Paul was so overwhelmed by the experience of seeing Jesus alive that Paul was absolutely convinced Paul or his contemporaries would be a part of the 2nd coming. But it didn’t. 2000 years after Paul, we still wait with this same hope!
• Gospel – Nighttime Israelite city 1st century extremely dark. So to operate at night in any capacity you better had your lamp lit with plenty of oil to keep it going.
• Questions = How often do you pray? How long? Morning? Evening? Noon? How often you attend Mass? How often to do you attend the sacraments? How often do you read the Bible? Spiritual books? How often do you love every day? Do you do the spiritual works of mercy? –> These are the ways to keep our lamps lit! The divine life can go out if we don’t attend to it. How are you going to wait for Jesus?

Brant Pitre

• Gospel – Christ, the Bridegroom Messiah, appears  to be delayed but will come at some point to inaugurate the everlasting wedding feast of the kingdom of Heaven. We need to be ready because we don’t know when He will come.
• Old Testament reading – gives us an image of seeking Wisdom through prayer day and night. Monks example waking up in night.
• Responsorial Psalm – a psalm about meditating on the truth and desiring to encounter God in prayer, even in the middle of the night – a prayer vigil.

St. Augustine: the “Oil” of “Good Works”

They are both virgins, and yet half are rejected. It is not enough that they are virgins but that they also have lamps. They are virgins by reason of abstinence from unlawful indulgence of the senses. But they have lamps by reason of good works. Of these good works the Lord says, “Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16). Again he said to his disciples, “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning” (Luke 12:35). In the “girded loins” is virginity. In the “burning lamps” is good works. (Augustine, Sermon 93.2; trans. in M. Simonetti, p. 217)