Dancing into a wedding

Intro

One of the things that all the hip kids these days like to do for their wedding reception is having a big introduction. So the DJ will play different songs and different couples will have to dance into a ballroom / reception, to some unsavory song with a cool rhythm. I have been a part of at least 10 of these. And each time… I was filled with dread. Everyone is looking, I’m perspiring, my feet would stop working. One time I just decided to leave my pairing and slide on the dance floor. I put a hole in the knee of the rental pants. Always awkward and I’ve never like it!

Until I heard the Gospel for today, I never knew that these women, these maidens, virgins, best friends of the bride would meet the groom who was coming on a journey, would meet the bridesmaids, and they would dance with him and his friends into the wedding banquet.

A wedding had already taken place. For a Jewish wedding a couple would be betrothed to one another, and this was a legally binding marriage. Now, they wouldn’t consummate yet, the groom would leave to build an addition onto his father’s house, or something similar, to prepare a home for them, and when it was ready, he would send word and begin making the journey to his bride to feast and then bring her back into the home and live as man and husband. This would occur at the end of all the festivities and eating and drinking.

Think of Christ here, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” John 14:1-3

And so, Christ is the bridegroom, and in our parable today we understand that this isn’t a normal wedding.

Surprises

We run into 2 oddities here 1) Five virgins run out of oil. How? This was all they had to do. How did they mess this up? - A bridegroom could take awhile. People are walking from one place to another, things aren’t as fast as we expect them to be now. “Ugh, Father, you started at 5:01! Yea, well, I had to walk here!” We don’t have much patience now, myself included… bear with me, i’m 1/2 done!

To go and buy new oil, they would have had to wait until morning or run back home. Regardless, they were ill prepared for the moment. That’s surprise one, don’t get caught ill prepared!

2) The Bridegroom didn’t let them in.

This one is weird because wouldn’t we just be happy they were OK? But its a reminder that preparation happens more than just on the day of. Its like, you want to be caught up with the Lord in the cloud? “But Lord its me…Megan…you know me, I’m your wife’s friend, remember? I went to Mass that one time?!”

Perhaps its like in Mt 25, the sheep and the goats, when the people said, “when did we see you naked, and hungry, and thirsty, and sick?” He’ll say, I don’t know you. He knows us, but perhaps he means here in the biblical knowledge, a husband and wife know each other… there is an intimacy. “I’m not intimate with you, you weren’t there with me to dance me to my bride” And that’s what Mass and the Christian life is.

Wisdom

“Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed for he shall find her sitting by his gate…for taking thought of wisdom is the perfection of prudence.” - Wis 6:14-15

Prudence is wisdom in action, quickly, making good decisions applying knowledge, practically.

The virgins were supposed to be waiting by the gate, for Wisdom Himself! but they were off buying oil

My mom used to say, “You need to get on my schedule, son, not yours.”

Wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit and we must be looking for this gift while we still can. Its an understanding of how God sees the universe, what things are for, what knowledge is for. This parable is to tell us that there will be a moment that is too late.

Chastity is a really really good thing, great, but its assumed in the parable. To get into heaven you have to be chaste! Obvious. But now what? a nun isn’t saved alone just because she is chaste. Her chastity allows her to pursue the Holy Spirit and all wisdom, in grace and holding onto it.

If prudence is wisdom lived out, and Holy Church cares about your choices and your decision making capacity, the lamps becomes our faith and the oil becomes our good works. Faith and worked go together and they illuminate together.

St. Augustine said, “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)

So there, our faith isn’t stupid, we constantly seek wisdom, which isn’t just being smart or accumulating knowledge, but God’s vision, and we live out charity.

To incorporate the 2nd Reading, not to scare us, to scare us into rapture, we don’t believe it, but to inspire us. The virgins are waiting for the bridegroom’s return. So are we now. Christ will come to bring us into the Shekinah, the glory cloud. But we are already His, He knows us and will gather us, in this life and in death. If we are with Him, we are already living the eternity of heaven, if not, the eternity of Hell. You lives are evidence whether you are His or not.

“Console one another with these words.” says St. Paul. The Gospel isn’t scary, but a refreshing and exciting message of the beauty to come.