Thirtieth-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Lesson: Wis 6:12-16
Epistle: 1 Thes 4:13-18
Gospel: Mt 25:1-13
The Foolish Virgins and the Wise Virgins, by Pieter Lisaert III, 1590s
The first reading from this Sunday’s Mass is take from the sixth chapter of the Book of Wisdom, and it speaks eloquently of the centrality of the search for Wisdom in the life of man:
Resplendent and unfading is wisdom,
and she is readily perceived by those who love her,
and found by those who seek her.
She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire;
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,
and whoever for her sake keeps vigil
shall quickly be free from care;
because she makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of her,
and graciously appears to them in the ways,
and meets them with all solicitude.
To seek wisdom is perhaps the defining characteristic of what makes one a human being. Aristotle opens his Metaphysics by declaring, “All humans by nature desire to know.” This thirst for knowledge arises from our natural faculty of reason, and is only ever fully quenched by the possession of God that we will (God willing) enjoy one day in the Beatific Vision. We desire to know, and to know aright. To enjoy the fullness of knowledge is to possess Wisdom, i.e. God Himself. In an age like our own, beset with so much error and confusion, we do well to remember this truth about our human nature, and to draw comfort from this aphorism of Saint John of the Cross: “The Lord has always revealed to mortals the treasures of His wisdom and His spirit, but now that the face of evil bares itself more and more, so does the Lord bare His treasures more.”
What does it mean to seek wisdom though? If the world and sometimes even those within the Church confuse the false wisdom of the world with the true wisdom of God, how then are we to recognize Wisdom in our own lives, much less to set off in pursuit of it?
Saint John of the Cross provides some luminous insight into this problem in Stanza 3 of his great masterpiece on the itinerary of the soul, The Spiritual Canticle. For the soul that intends to seek after and possess wisdom, the first step must be a decisive turn towards God and away from self-worship:
Those who seek God and yet want their own satisfaction and rest seek Him at night and thus will not find Him. Those who look for Him through the practice and works of the virtues and get up from the bed of their own satisfaction and delight seek Him by day and thus will find Him. What is not found by night appears during the day.
After citing the passage from Wisdom that is given above as proof of this, Saint John further elaborates that
when the soul has departed from the house of her own will and the bed of her own satisfaction, outside she will find divine Wisdom, the Son of God, her Spouse.
This departure of the soul from the “house of her own will” consists in the twin practice of the exercise of the virtues and the practice of self-denial and mortification of the appetites. Saint John’s interprets the line of his poem, “I will head for the mountains and for watersides,” thus:
The mountains, which are high, refer to the virtues: first, because of their height; second, because of the difficulty and labor one undergoes in climbing them. She says that she will exercise the contemplative life by means of these virtues.
The watersides, which are low, refer to the mortifications, penances, and spiritual exercises by which she says she will practice the active life, joined with the contemplative life mentioned above. To seek God in the right way and to acquire the virtues both are necessary.
These words, then, are like saying, Seeking my Beloved, I will both practice the high virtues and humble myself by lowly mortifications and humble exercises.
For the Christian living in the world, this is a marvelous yet simple teaching on how one may pursue God with all one’s soul. The identification of the contemplative life with the pursuit of virtue indicates the centrality of prayer and the sacraments in the growth of virtue. God Himself is the author of virtue, and in order to climb to the heights of both the natural and supernatural virtues, we must repair to the very source itself. After all, what is virtue but the orientation of our habits and inclinations into full conformity with Wisdom Himself? If we desire this to transpire, we must be seekers of the Lord “in spirit and in truth”.
However, this contemplative life must be joined to the active. We accomplish this through self-denial and mortification of the appetites. If the first step in seeking Wisdom is to make a decisive turn towards God, this turn must be continually confirmed and reinvigorated throughout our entire lives. Saint John explains why in addressing the various goods that the world offers:
They are of three kinds: temporal, sensory, and spiritual. All three occupy the heart and hinder the spiritual nakedness required for the direct way of Christ, if the soul pays attention to them or becomes attached [emphasis added]. Consequently, she says that in order to seek him she will not gather these things. This line is equivalent to saying: I will not set my heart on the riches and goods the world offers, neither will I tolerate the pleasures and desires of my flesh, nor will I pay heed to the satisfactions and consolations of my spirit in a way that may detain me from seeking my Love in the mountains and riversides of virtues and trials [emphasis added].
This last line is especially important, because it serves as a guard against a morbid scrupulosity that fills the soul with anxiety over anything remotely pleasurable in life, and thus sets the Christian up for discouragement and even despair. All good things come from God, and so long as we enjoy them as God intends, to the degree that He intends, and with the aim of loving Him better through them, we can safely accept His gifts to us. However, we should also be on guard against a laxity or carelessness in our moral and spiritual life, which pays lip service to the glory of God while continuing to serve two masters under the pretense of piety. We should strive to be free of anxiety, but also be firm, honest, objective, and uncompromising with ourselves in how we relate to the good things of this life. This is especially important when it comes to spiritual goods, about which the serious soul is more prone to fool herself, because these goods seem to be “of God”. Saint John further tells us:
It should be know that not only are temporal goods and bodily delights contradictory to the path leading to God, but so also are the spiritual consolations, if possessed or sought with attachment, an obstacle to the way of the Cross of Christ, the Bridegroom.
The Mystical Doctor felt so strongly about this that in another work, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, he interprets the Gospel of this Sunday, the parable of the ten virgins, as a commentary on Christians who are of the Faith but do not seek God with all their hearts.
Thus, through their good customs and virtues they should fix their eyes only on the service and honor of God. Without this aspect the virtues are worth nothing in God’s sight. This is evident in the Gospel in the case of the ten virgins. They had all preserved their virginity and done good works, yet because five of them had not rejoiced in this second way (by directing their joy in their works to God), but rather in the first, rejoicing vainly in the possession of their works, they were rejected from heaven and left without any gratitude or reward from their spouse.
What more should the Christian soul do to ensure that all things are done only for the honor and glory of God, beyond what has already been prescribed? The Gospel of the ten virgins offers us with two further teachings so that we can seek Wisdom with peace and confidence.
The first is that we can be far better assured of serving God rather than ourselves if we devote ourselves to humble, consistent, generous service to Christ in the poor. The foolish virgins, caught at the moment of the coming of the Bridegroom with oil running out, rush to purchase more from the merchants, but it is too late. The Church Fathers commonly interpreted the oil to be the merits of good works, and the figure of the merchants to be the poor. Saint Hilary of Poitier comments,
They that sell are the poor, who, needing the alms of the faithful, made them that recompense which they desire, selling in return for the relief afforded to their wants, a consciousness of good works. This is the abundant fuel of an undying light which may be bought and stored up for the fruit of mercy.
And Saint John Chrysostom writes,
You see then how great merchants the poor are to us; but the poor are not there, but here, and therefore we must store up oil here, that we may have it to use there when occasion shall require.
The second teaching of the Gospel is that, because we cannot know the time of the Lord’s coming in our lives (save that, for all our expectation, He will arrive “at midnight”, the hour of surprise), we must keep watch and be ever alert for the coming of the Lord. This means never presuming that we have “done our bit” or that we “have it in the bag”, but rather making every day into a new beginning, seeking Christ as if we were seeking Him for the very first time. The words of Jesus, “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour,” are echoed in the first reading about 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,
and whoever for her sake keeps vigil
shall quickly be free from care;
because she makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of her.
It is characteristic of the soul seeking Wisdom, seeking God, that she will thus keep watch, staying awake with her lamp trimmed and burning brightly. If we can see in ourselves this unflagging vigilance for the coming of the Bridegroom, seeking after Him with all the sleepless longing of the Bride, then we can remain in peaceful assurance that we will be invited to enter after Him into the wedding feast.