Friday Gospel Recharge
A Reflection on Matthew 25: 1-13
(21st Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)
"Stay awake:" faith and good works
From my observation, sometimes it can seem that in our
Catholic Church, we can divide it into three factions: those who over emphasise
prayer who do very little good works; those who don’t pray or pray less and
over emphasise works; and those in the middle, whose life is balanced with
prayer and good works. As Catholics we are called to live a life of prayer and
good works.
Outside of our Church communion, there is an ecclesial community not in communion with us Catholics, who seem terribly fixated on the mantra of being saved through faith alone and not good works. In my opinion, this community of believers over emphasise this not only because they are interested in making this truth of theirs known, but to make a misconstrued point that the Catholic Church does not believe one is saved through faith. This mantra or doctrine really, is true, the church ascribes to it, that faith in Jesus saves a man from condemnation. However, our faith in Jesus should move us to action. This Catholic perspective on faith and good works come from the scripture. It says in the Letter of St James 2:17" faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." St James goes on further to say in this same chapter that "a man is justified by works and not faith alone" (2:24). One who loves Jesus therefore will act in his name to show that love in their personhood. After all Jesus did the very same, expressing his love for our Heavenly Father and offered his own life for our redemption. He did this out of love for us too and as a result we owe it to God, to love him in return with our entire life.
In today’s Gospel, there are many themes which can be found in it, although it is primarily revolved around Jesus, the bridegroom, and the Church’s belief with respect of his second coming. One day, Jesus will return again, and separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats. What this means is that God’s plan for all of humanity will eventually end, like all good things, and when that time comes, those around to witness this spectacular event will see the Lord and know him and realise their relationship to him: Some will be saved due to their faith that works, and others not whose dead faith produced no good works.
While this Gospel is preoccupied with Jesus’s second coming, it has a stark message: “stay awake” until the bridegroom returns. For the majority of us, the second coming of Christ will be experienced at our death. His second coming will be met most likely upstairs in heaven or somewhere nearby there where and have our judgement handed down individually, then and there. However, those who will live in the end times, the second coming of Christ for them is when Jesus meets them here on earth, coming down from heaven on a cloud in all his glory with his angels. That day will be sad and treacherous for many who will not be saved, while glad and full of rejoicing for Christ’s faithful.
How one is faithful to Christ or not is reflected in today’s gospel in the parable of the bridesmaids. In this Gospel, we read that each bridesmaid had with them a lit lantern, however some had with them a reserve of oil and others not, to fuel their lit lanterns. When the bridegroom had returned, it was the bridesmaid with the reserve of oil who entered the wedding hall with Jesus. The others who had no oil, ran out of fuel, and had the doors shut before them.
Light and oil are important biblical symbols. As for light or lamp, it is the image of Christ as our light and our way to God; his message, his actions are our guide to the Father’s heart. Oil with respect to light can mean many things. It can mean presence of God, it can symbolise strength, it can also mean a blessing from God, a popular image in the Old Testament (OT), however in some New Testament (NT) passages, it can mean repentance. A person who is repentant has a change of heart and changes his ways, he turns away from sin and looks to God as his guide and as a result finds blessing in their lives, so blessing and repentance speak to each other.
In other words, oil is used to mean good works. As for Christ’s faithful they are preoccupied in the good works of the Lord, making him present and known in his or her own actions. These people put their money where their mouth is, or if I could use another idiom, walk the talk, even in difficult times, who like the bridesmaid with the reserve of oil who fell tired and weary at times, kept their lantern alit.
So while faith alone saves us, obedience to Christ can never be substituted for a mindless coziness with the Lord and feelings of warm devotion toward him, which the bridesmaid who had the doors shut on them exemplified: “Lord, Lord.” Our job as Christians is to make the kingdom of God present in the world. This requires work, effort, and perseverance in the work of Christ. Jesus compares us to bridesmaids, and the role of the bridesmaid is to attend to the need of the bride, the Church. Being a bridesmaid isn’t exactly a mere honorary title, it a privilege to serve and so as Christians we serve Christ until Christ is ready to claim his bride, the Church.
Many ecclesial communities have calculated the coming of Jesus and predicted it wrong every time. I have a friend who ascribes to the principles of a Baptist Christian telling me that Jesus is coming soon, and she says this every time with the greatest cheer, as though she knows something which the Church doesn’t. I suspect she does this to spark interest in people so to initiate a conversation about Jesus, and this is noble of her. However, it’s not our place to predict Jesus’s return. In fact, Jesus himself says: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Matthew 24:36). Our place is to trust who Jesus says he is and put this trust in action. Like the birth of Jesus, he will come later than expected, when we are least expecting it, so it’s best not to calculate the second coming of Jesus because we will probably be wrong. Instead, we ought to pursue holiness as this text of scripture teaches us. Near expectations only proves an over alert of his coming, making us look stupid and embarrassed although a distant expectation is equally dangerous as it makes a man secular, forgetting God’s concern in human affairs.
The moral of this parable is this: Jesus wants us in relationship with him, to be holy while he is away so that upon his second return he will find us ready to meet him and his bride, the church. Holiness entails not only a lip service to faith in Christ, but a faith that is lived out in obedience to his commandments to the very end. Jesus will judge us on our obedience to faith in his commandments, this judgement comes at death or upon his return, not because we say “Lord, Lord.”
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