by Fr. Tommy Lane
Jesus told stories that we call parables to make a point. When the parable is about people, we compare ourselves with the people in the parable to see where we stand. In today’s Gospel, we heard Jesus tell a parable about a wedding and the point of the parable or story is at the end: stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
To understand the parable about the wedding better, we need to know a little about Jewish weddings at the time of Jesus. A year before the wedding, the couple were betrothed. Betrothal is more definitive than engagement; a betrothal could only be broken by divorce even though the couple did not live together during the yearlong betrothal before marriage. After the year of betrothal, the bridegroom sent word to his bride in her parents’ house that the wedding would be on a certain day but did not tell the time. The bride and her bridesmaids had to be on alert that day because the bridegroom could come at any time in the evening to bring the bride to his parents’ house for the wedding and dinner. Five bridesmaids had prepared and had enough oil for their lamps while the other five had their lamps but did not have oil. The bridegroom came for his bride and took her, with her five bridesmaids who were ready, to wedding. When the other five had purchased their oil, they tried to get into the wedding, but it was too late. Jesus concludes his parable: stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
We are to stay awake and be ready for the time when Jesus will call us from this life to the next. Jesus does not want us to leave preparation for the next life until we know he is calling us to the next life; Jesus wants us to live our entire lives united with him so that going to the next life will be only a blip in a continuation of living our life with him. Do we have oil ready for our lamps no matter when the Lord will call us? That is the question the parable poses to us. How do we have oil for our lamps for that day when the Lord will call us to himself? By living with Lord now, living a good Catholic life, meeting the Lord in the Eucharist here every Sunday, praying every day, loving our neighbor as ourselves in all the forms that can take.
There are well-meaning but misguided people with subscribers on the internet telling us to get ready with oil for our lamps in a different way. They are propagating messages on the internet as if they themselves are modern day prophets or are the spokespeople for modern day prophets. I regard them as false prophets. They often say something will happen on a specific date, but nothing happens. Then they give a new date. When nothing happens again, they make up excuses such as using Jonah: that people prayed and so that is why nothing happened. But when Our Lady in Fatima promised a miracle of the sun on October 13, 1917, it happened and was witnessed by tens of thousands including government officials, skeptics, and journalists who reported on it in the secular press of the time.
These false prophets like to refer to passages in the Book of Revelation / Apocalypse saying specific passages of the Book of Revelation are about something specific in our time. When they do that, I would suggest keeping far away from them. There is no part of the Book of Revelation about anything specific in our time. The first three chapters of that book are about the first century and all the rest of the book is about the battle between good and evil from Calvary until the end of time, the battle being experienced by the Church in the entirety of its history. After the first three chapters about the first century, there are seven cycles of chapters describing the battle between good and evil from Calvary until the end of time. When the first cycle describing the battle between good and evil concludes, the second cycle begins using different imagery and so on until by the end of the book we have been through this seven times. You cannot take a passage in Scripture and say it means this, that, or the other thing. Scripture means what it was intended to mean. You cannot take a passage in Scripture and force it to say something that takes your fancy. Scripture means what it was intended to mean. When these false prophets say something in the Book of Revelation is about this specific time, I suggest keeping away from them.
If they speak about refuges, I would suggest keeping away from them. Our refuge is Jesus in the tabernacle. Our Lady is our refuge and her Marian shrines. Jesus and Mary are our refuges. If they start talking about refuges, I would suggest running far away from them. Stick to Jesus in the tabernacle, Our Lady and her Marian Shrines, the Bible, and Mass. They are the oil for your lamp to be ready when Jesus will call you.
Jesus does not want us to leave preparation for the next life until we know he is calling us to the next life; Jesus wants us to live our entire lives here united with him so that going to the next life will be only a blip in a continuation of living our life with him. Stick to Jesus in the tabernacle, Our Lady and her Marian Shrines, the Bible, and Mass. Then you will have oil for your lamp when Jesus will call you.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2023
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Thirty-Second Sunday of Year A
Do you take the Lord as your God? I do 2020
Related Homilies: Stay awake, praying at all times
A priest’s near death experience