Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time; St. Casimir's.
Ever have the experience of looking for something that’s right under your nose? Like going searching for your glasses when you’re wearing them (which I guess would make them on your nose, not under it, but the point stands). Or, my personal favorite, the time a little while back when I noticed that my trouser pocket seemed a little light, reached down to check what was in it, thought “Oh no! Where are my car keys,” then realized… I was driving. Well, both our first reading and our gospel are about that kind of possibility, only not with glasses and keys, but with Wisdom, and Wisdom incarnate, Christ at his coming.
Our first reading, from the book of Wisdom, talks
of Wisdom as a heavenly woman who comes to us. We don’t have to go a long
distance to seek her out, because she comes to us. We don’t have to go any
further than our gate. But we do have to show up there, we can’t remain
barricaded away in our houses, and we have to be attentive. We have to go out
of ourselves, just a little, and we have to pay attention.
Jesus’ parable too is about one who comes to us:
the Bridegroom this time, in an image for his coming to us again at the end of
time. Again, we don’t have to go on some great lengthy quest to find him, he’s
coming, but he wants us ready, with lit oil lamps. It’s worth noting that
there’s no suggestion that any of the young women in the parable don’t have
access to oil. The five who get into trouble are the ones who refuse to burn
it, who basically hide their lamp under a bushel basket, refuse to be light for
the world, as Jesus asked in his great Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus assures us that we have enough. We have
enough oil. He assures us that we’re close enough. We don’t have to undertaken
some long arduous journey to sanctity. He’s the one who’ll make the long
journey. He’s close and we have enough oil. But it’s not right here and our oil
is not yet fully aflame. We have to recognize that we’re not yet as holy as God
dreams of us being. We have to recognize that we’re not like flaming furnace of
charity that is Jesus’ Sacred Heart. But we’re close, and we have enough oil.
Holiness does not require of us, Jesus does not
ask of us, something big, grandiose, heroic. But we are asked to do little
things with great love. One saint who shows us that way very beautifully, I
think, is St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. She’s called the Little
Flower because she compared “every little sacrifice, every glance and word” to
scattering a little flower on the way.
At the time when she lived, the elevator was just
starting to become popular, and she used this to talk about how close holiness
is. She had heard so many descriptions of the road to heaven as being like a
long staircase or ladder and she said, no, in Christ, God has given us an
elevator. We have only to get on and trust, and God does the heavy lifting.
She lived most of her life in a Carmelite
monastery in France. There were twenty-six nuns there when she entered, and the
numbers stayed relatively stable during her time. Three of the nuns were her elder
blood sisters and one other was her cousin. These were all women she had been
close to as a child, the eldest really serving as a second mother to her after
her mother had died, and she had missed them terribly when they entered the
convent. But she resolved that during times of community recreation, she would
simply sit down next to whatever nun she found herself closest to, especially
if there was a nun who appeared downcast. This is the kind of paying attention
at your gateway that the scriptures call us to today. This is letting your oil
burn, and warming another when they’re cold.
Her monastery was asked several times to provide “spiritual
sisters,” what we would now call “prayer partners,” for missionary priests. She
was always eager to do this, and not only prayed for the priests she was assigned,
but entered into long exchanges of letters with them. That’s why, despite spending
most of her life in one monastery, and only ever having left France once for a
pilgrimage to Rome, she’s one of the patron saints of missionaries. With her
prayers, and her words of encouragement and advice, she didn’t need to go
further than her gate to have a profound impact on Christian missionary work. Her
prayers were doubtlessly fruitful, and continue to be so in heaven. But she
also took on the role of mentor and teacher in these letters. Her stock of oil,
to a large extent, was a sensitivity, a paying attention, to human nature and
to what God was doing. And she let that fire blaze.
Friends, we knowing God is coming. We have enough
oil. He’s close. Let’s pay attention, and let’s set the world aflame.
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