The Parable of the Ten Virgins

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten wedding attendants took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The foolish ones, though they took their lamps, took no oil with them, whereas the wise ones took flasks of oil as well as their lamps. The bridegroom was late, and they all grew drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Look, the bridegroom! Go out to meet him’” (Matt. 25:1-6).

This parable is about taking oil in our lamps. The oil that is referred to here is not the black, tarry stuff that comes about on the ground, but rather, everything that's necessary in order to get us into the kingdom of God: divine grace, formation, good works, holiness.

At various stages of our life, Our Lord wants us to take oil on board. Every time we receive one of the sacraments, every time we attend some activity of formation—a retreat, a seminar, a talk, a class, spiritual direction, Confession, our spiritual reading, our rosary—each one of these norms of our spiritual life is an opportunity to take oil in our lamps.

At the same time, the parable speaks to us about how our time is short—the time that we have is an important part of the inheritance received from God. We're called to use the time available in order to love.

Christ is love. The Catholic Church is love. Everything about our faith is love.

When we look at this parable and see the importance given to making use of opportunities, we can also think of all of our omissions. When we say the “I confess…” every day in the Mass, we talk about our thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions.

Possibly our greatest faults may be sins of omission: things we could have done but didn't do because of carelessness or laziness or thoughtlessness or whatever—all caused by a lack of love.

This parable can also lead us to give thanks to God for all the good things that He has given to us. “What have you,” says St. Paul, “that you have not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7).

Everything is a gift. And one of the gifts that God gives us is the gift of time, the gift of opportunities.

In Friends of God, we’re told, “When I reflect on this, how well I understand St. Paul's exclamation when he writes to the Corinthians, tempus breve est–time is short” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 39).

I heard of a story of a young fellow in Argentina. He was trying to do a lot of apostolate with his classmates in university. It was a Marian year, as proclaimed by the Pope. He was trying to do something special for Our Lady every day. Each day he wrote in his diary some little aspiration to Our Lady.

Then one time he invited three of his classmates to go on a pilgrimage to a shrine of Our Lady. There's a famous shrine called Our Lady of Luján outside Buenos Aires. He borrowed a car from his father, and they went there on this pilgrimage.

But there was a bad accident along the way. Their car went under a truck. These four guys were killed.

The spiritual director of that fellow was looking at his diary later to see if there was anything that needed to be attended to and found that he had written an aspiration to Our Lady every day of that Marian year.

On those particular days, he had written that phrase from St. Paul: Maria, tempus breve est. Mary, “time is short” (1 Cor. 7:29). He didn't know how short his time was.

St. Josemaría continues, “How short indeed is the time of our passing through this world! For the true Christian, these words ring deep down in his heart as a reproach to his lack of generosity and as a constant invitation to be loyal.

“Brief indeed is our time for loving, for giving, for making atonement. It would be very wrong, therefore, for us to waste it, or to cast this treasure irresponsibly overboard. We mustn't squander this period of the world's history which God has entrusted to each one of us” (Ibid.).

That last line of that quotation has very haunting words: “We mustn't squander this period of the world's history which God has entrusted to each one of us.”

This particular period is our period. This is the period that God wants us to influence, to make a splash, to leave a legacy. Therefore, we can't “cast this treasure” of time and opportunity “irresponsibly overboard.”

One of the greatest omissions we could have is to waste time, to waste opportunities. We have to try and struggle to use our time well.

In The Way, St. Josemaría says, “Turn your back on the tempter when he whispers in your ear: ‘Why make life difficult for yourself?’” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 6).

Elsewhere in The Way, we're told, “Get rid of that 'small-town' outlook. Enlarge your heart till it becomes universal, 'catholic.’ Don't flutter about like a hen, when you can soar to the heights of an eagle.” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 7).

St. Josemaría liked to inflame the hearts of young people with great ideals: to make them think and make them dream of great things.

He says also in The Way, Point 13, “Get rid of those useless thoughts which, at best, are but a waste of time.”

The Church reminds us that we are pilgrims. We're journeying forward. She herself is a pilgrim. We stand before God as “a wayfarer among the persecutions of the world and also with the consolations from God” (Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium, Point 8).

Our life's path can be a path of tribulation, but also of God's consolation. We have a life in time now which we are living, but another life outside of time to which we are making our way.

It's for that for which we have to take oil in our lamps, thinking of the future, adding an eternal echo to every moment of our existence.

The time at our disposal is an important part of the inheritance that God has given to us. Time represents the separation between the present and that moment when we will stand before God, with our hands empty or our hands full.

Only now in this life can we obtain merit for the next. Every single day of ours is a period given to us by God, I'm told, with 86,500 seconds, and they're ticking.

All those seconds are given to us so that we may fill it with love of Him, with love for those around us, with work well done, with putting the virtues into practice; in a word, fill it with a life full of good works pleasing to God's eyes.

In St. Matthew, we're told, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them and thieves cannot break in and steal. For wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).

A number of years ago, I was called to the bedside of a man who was dying of cancer at age 51. I was on duty as a doctor in a hospital that night.

He had asked his relatives to leave the room, and when they left the room, he took hold of my wrist with one hand, a hand that was already cold and clammy. Death had already begun to creep into his body.

With a look of terror in his eyes, he said, “Doctor, don't let me die.” He was going to die a few hours later. There he was at the moment of his death in such terror.

He was well-to-do. He was in the best hospital in the country. But at the moment of his death, he realized that all his treasures were in this world.

This brought back to you in a very clear way the relevance of that phrase we've just quoted, to store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

Every day, every hour of our life is an opportunity to store up those treasures. Now is the time to amass the treasure that never perishes, to take oil in our lamps in every single possible way that we can.

For each one of us, “Now is the acceptable time;” says St. Paul, “now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

Once it is past, there will be no other time. The time that each one of us has at our disposal is short, but long enough to tell God that we love Him, and we want to accomplish the work that He has given us.

St. Paul says, “Look carefully then how you walk—not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of time” (Eph. 5:15-16). “For soon night comes when no one can work” (John 9:4).

St. Paul considers the brevity of our stay on earth and the insignificance of things in themselves: “for the form of this world,” he said, “is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31). This life is just a shadow of the life that awaits us in heaven: the eternal wedding feast.

It doesn't matter if we only perceive a small part of this. In our prayer today we could thank Our Lord for all the gifts we've received.

“We can ask Him for new strength to serve him and to endeavor never to be ungrateful, for that is the condition on which the Lord bestows his jewels” (St. Teresa of Ávila, Life).

If we realize the gift, si scires donum dei... (John 4:10). So ‘acts of thanksgiving’ is also a very good norm of always.

“If we do not make good use of the treasures that he's given to us, and of the high estate to which he brings us, then God may take those treasures away. We might become poorer than before. He might give those jewels to someone else who can display them to greater advantage.

“We are aware of our own miseries, our own wretchedness, how we can be attracted by earthly things and forget the things of the next world” (Ibid.).

We can ask Our Lord for forgiveness for so many failures and omissions to correspond to grace, for all those occasions when Our Lord may have been at our side and we made no effort to see Him, and so let Him pass by.

We can also thank Our Lord for the innumerable times when He has shown great mercy to us and given us all sorts of graces that we weren't aware of.

We could tell Him: Lord, I want to resolve to love you and to struggle to acquire the virtues. To get rid of my defects. To use the time available for me to do that.

Our Lord wants us to be vigilant. “Walk while you have the light” (John 12:35).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “To God, all moments are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of ‘predestination,’ he includes in it each person's free response to grace” (Catechism, Point 600).

“He has made everything suitable for its time. He has put a sense of past and future into their minds if they cannot find out what God has done from the very beginning to the end” (Eccles. 3:11).

Our Lord gives us time to respond to His grace. Every minute that passes is a grace that has flowed. Time is like a flowing divine treasure. We see it coming, it comes, and then it's gone, never to come again.

We should try and make use of that treasure while we have it, respond to that grace by doing in each moment what we're supposed to be doing so that we're never “idle in the marketplace” saying that “no man has hired us” (Matt. 20:6-7).

The shortness of life is a continual call to squeeze from it all that we can: to have a list of things we're supposed to do every day, a “to-do” list with priorities so that we're always hitting the most important thing; and we always try and keep God before our eyes, and put the spiritual things first.

We could ask ourselves in our prayer, Is Our Lord pleased with the way I've handled the past? Have I spent my time well or have I wasted opportunities? Have I let go of the Cross because of my tendency to complain at the first sign of opposition?

We have to try and see each new increment of time as a new call to holiness in our ordinary life and all the time, we are much nearer to the definitive moment of our meeting with God at death.

We are told, “Let us not grow weary in our well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. Then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men” (Gal. 6:9-10).

We thank Our Lord for all the good things we have received. Let us also make acts of contrition for all our omissions, the times when we lacked charity, when maybe, we were too easy-going in our work, when we got a bit used to spiritual mediocrity, or maybe, gave little in the way of alms.

Maybe we've been prey to selfishness and vanity. We haven’t mortified ourselves at meals. We’ve ignored the graces given to us by the Holy Spirit.

Or we’ve been intemperate or ill-humored or stubborn in character. Or we’ve more or less deliberately allowed ourselves to be distracted in our practices of piety.

We have all sorts of reasons for asking God's forgiveness. We look at each one of our days—we see we have reasons to ask for forgiveness on a daily basis, for the offense we may have caused with our words or with our actions. We can't escape from this fact even for a day.

And yet, in the human and supernatural realms, our reasons for thanksgiving are incomparably greater.

We can't count the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in our soul, all the graces we've received in the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion, all the times our guardian angel has protected us, the merit we've gained through the offering of our work and hardships for others, and the times when other people also have helped us. There are great things there for which we have to thank.

When Our Lord speaks of time, He speaks about small increments of time. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Christ doesn't speak of Vision 2030 or Millennium Goals.

He talks about today: “This hour you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). “Woman, my hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). All the time Our Lord is talking about small periods.

He invites us to make very good use, to take the oil in our lamps, to see that time is a treasure, a gift of God, a talent. It's for glory, it's for grace, it's for eternity.

We are to sanctify time, we need to sanctify each moment, with norms of always like acts of thanksgiving, acts of atonement, and acts of faith.

Time is an instrument in our hands. We're doing something with it. It's given in order to work, to give glory to God, to develop ourselves, to serve.

We don't go around saying, ‘I have time, I have time, I have time.’ It's like saying, ‘I have a Biro, I have a Biro, I have a Biro.’

What are you going to do with that Biro? Are you going to sign a check or a contract or give your autograph? That's what makes it important.

We are not lords of time, but just administrators. It's a divine treasure that doesn't belong to us.

Idling in the marketplace is a very dangerous place to be, as a punishment for the lazy servant who hid his master's talent (Matt. 25:18). We have to try and struggle against the inertia, a feeling of not feeling like doing things.

We have to try and push ourselves to do things today and now. Fulfill my duty. No procrastination. Be demanding of ourselves in this area because our time belongs to God.

Because of that, we try and use it well. It can be good to get advice on how we use our time. Should I do this? Should I do that? Maybe some things are a waste of time.

And all the time we have is limited. Some people get over 100 years; some 80, 60, 40. Some babies just get a few minutes or a few hours. But everybody gets their time.

That's a gift. St. Josemaría calls it the treasure of time. Some people say time is money, time is my business. He said, “Time is a treasure” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Chapter 3).

Blessed Álvaro speaks about the sanctification of the moment. Our life is made up of many sanctified moments. In taking oil in our lamps and encouraging us to do so, Our Lord is stimulating our initiative, our responsibility to have a sense of urgency.

When Our Lady heard what the will of God was for her, she went “with haste into the hill country” (Luke 1:39). She didn't dilly-dally.

When we see what God's will for us is, we also have to go quickly to fulfill that will. We're also told that the shepherds went “with haste” to Bethlehem (Luke 2:16).

God has given us our time for a very specific reason, to acquire certain talents, to conquer certain defects, to work.

The Book of Ecclesiastes says God has appointed time for every matter, for every work: “a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to reap what has been planted” (Eccles. 3:1-2).

A time also to rest. A time to spend with our family and be a time to stop running around the place doing things and focus on what is most important.

The first point in The Way says, “Don't let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love. With your apostolic life, wipe out the trail of filth and slime left by the corrupt sowers of hatred. And set aflame all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you bear in your heart” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 1).

The words of St. Josemaría are very dynamic. They encourage us to plan our time very well. If you look at management textbooks, you'll find that a lot of them talk about the management of time. Very often, the management of self has a lot to do with the management of time.

We're told in the Furrow (Point 82), “There are many who feel unhappy, just because they have too much of everything. —Christians, if they really behave as God's children, will suffer discomfort, heat, tiredness, and cold. … But they will never lack joy, because that—all that!—is ordained or permitted by Him who is the source of true happiness.”

Naturalness has nothing to do with rusticity, or being shabby, or doing things poorly, or being bad-mannered. Some people are determined to reduce the service of God to working in a world of miserable and lousy poverty.

Such work is and will always be admirable. But if we stop there, apart from abandoning the vast majority of souls, what should we do when we've brought them out of their need? Ignore them?

St. Josemaría opens up horizons for us, thinking of the future, forming people, and education. “Have you noticed,” he said, “that mortified souls, because of their simplicity, have a greater enjoyment of good things, even in this world?” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 982).

He says in Furrow, Point 813, “I give you thanks, my Jesus, for your decision to become perfect Man, with a Heart which loved and is most lovable; which loved unto death and suffered; which was filled with joy and sorrow; which delighted in things of men and showed us the way to Heaven; which subjected itself heroically to duty and acted with mercy; which watched over the poor and the rich and cared for sinners and the just…—I give you thanks, my Jesus. Give us hearts to measure up to yours!”

There was a visitor to a certain country once who was touring the country and came across a farmer who was cutting a hedge. He observed him for some time, and then he realized that there was a much faster way to get the job done.

So in his generosity and innocence, he went to the local farmer who was cutting the hedge and said, ‘Look, I think if you do this a different way, you'd get this job done in half the time.’

And the farmer replied, ‘Well, what good would that be to me? I don't have double the work to be doing!’

You could say that that wasn't a very efficient approach to the use of time. We can always find new things to do, new ways to help, new ways to serve, new ways to be effective.

Our Lady “went up into the hill country with haste” (Luke 1:39). She'll help us to take oil in our lamps at every single opportunity. She'll help us to see that time is limited.

There's a moment that's going to come when the door is shut. “Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding hall and the door was closed.” It's very final.

“The other attendants arrived, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door to us.’ But he replied, ‘In truth, I tell you, I do not know you.’ So, stay awake because you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt. 25:10-13).

We could ask Our Lady to help us to take oil in our lamps, to use every opportunity to thank God for all the great things He's given to us so that we can be ready with our lamp burning brightly when the bridegroom comes.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF