November 8, 2020
XXXII Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
The remaining Sundays of the liturgical year have as their background the theme of waiting, of vigilance, of the Lord’s return.
Waiting is a keyword of our faith journey, like other words such as love, grace, and forgiveness. Only the person who can wait and remain in waiting is sure that the one he expects will come. Perhaps he does not know when (cf. Mt 25:13); he does not know the timing of this expectation but waits because he wants to be present when the one awaited finally arrives.
For us Christians, this is particularly important, and it closely affects our faith and the mystery in which we believe, in which we place our only hope, which is that of the Resurrection.
Indeed, if Jesus were dead, we would no longer expect anything, no one. Everything would end; everything would end here. If anything, we could remember Him, repeat His words, remember His gestures, but it would all end there.
But since Jesus has risen, then He is the Coming One, the One who always comes, the One who we can always expect because through the mystery of His resurrection, of His eternal life, He can always reach us, He can still be with us.
Today we read the parable of the ten virgins who await the arrival of the bridegroom (Mt 25: 1-13), and we read it in this light. It tells us that five are wise and five foolish (Mt 25:2), and we would expect that the foolish virgins are those who fall asleep while waiting, while the wise remain awake. Not so: everyone falls asleep, and the difference is not there. The difference is that when they awaken, some still have oil, others do not.
The wise are those who have a quantity of the oil that lasts until the arrival of the groom, who can withstand his delay; others cannot. So, when the bridegroom arrives, the lamps of the foolish are extinguished; their wait has failed. When the bridegroom comes, they are there, but they no longer wait for him, so, having remained in the dark, they do not recognize him and cannot be recognized by him (Mt 25:12).
There is a fascinating, distinctive detail that shows the inability of the foolish to remain in waiting. When the foolish virgins realize they have no more oil, they ask their wise companions for some (Mt 25: 8): as if this oil were something that can be restored in an instant, as if it were not the fruit of a patient and daily conversion of desire.
We could say that only those who love can endure waiting. Only those who love can know the art of not being dazzled by what only seems ready, mature, at hand, by what has not passed through the time of trial, which has not known the long and silent succession of the seasons of life.
Faith is this constant training, which only at the end bears its ripe fruit in the encounter with the Lord. The more the encounter will be full and bright, the longer the time of life will be used to grow in everything that will allow us to recognize the Lord and be recognized by Him.
One last note. This parable speaks of the bridegroom, but not the bride. The bride, who remains in the background, is the whole of humanity, with whom the Lord wants to fulfill His final wedding, His eternal covenant.
The virgins, instead, who await the bridegroom, are figures of the Church, called to guard the desire of God in the world, to live love in the sure hope of His return, of marriage with Him.
It is the Church’s call to live this union not for itself but for all, and in the name of all.
+ Pierbattista
