Today at Holy Mass we hear from St Paul…He writes a letter to his friends the Corinthians…In the letter he tells them about what true wisdom is….”The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”…What does being “saved” mean to many Americans today?…..Jesus gives us the answer himself…..”For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”…Somehow we have convinced our self that we can be “saved” without the cross…There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday!…..We have sanitized our Catholic faith…St Paul today tells us like it is and so does Jesus….We can not have it both ways!
”Where is the wise one?…..Where is the scribe?…..Where is the debater of this age?….Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?”
Death is the great equalizer…I work in a section of New York City by Central Park South…The street next to my office building is referred to as billionaires-row….At lunch somedays I take a walk and I see the wealthy coming and going in and out of their high-rise apartments…Some days, I see very old people in wheelchairs being pushed by poor Caribbean women from the Bronx…These people at one time I am sure were uber-powerful…And how their only company is a poor woman they pay a minimum wage too who push them in a wheelchair down the street…..No one no longer cares what they did for living…Where they went to school….Where they worked…What they owned….The “party’ has ended….…Life has boiled down to a wheelchair and their only company a poor woman for hire to push their feeble body down the street…..Was it all worth it?…….We all have to answer that question for our selves
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside”
In the gospel today at Mass St Matthew tells us about ten virgins…Some are wise and others are foolish….When God returns…And keep this in mind…God will return when we least expect it…As it is when many people die…We do not know the hour or the day…But when God returns…St Matthew tells us the foolish virgins have “no oil” in their “lamps”…They ask for some oil from the wise virgins but the reality of the situation is the “oil” is not transferable…The “oil” in the parable told by St Matthew represents nothing material that can be traded…It represents personal virtue….Its too late for the foolish virgins…And as the story was told by St Matthew today…These foolish virgins have “no oil” in their lamp and find themselves in the “dark” outside and the “door” is locked…..This is how the scene plays out…..
“Afterwards the other virgins came and said, 'Lord, Lord, open the door for us!' But he said in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.' Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour."
Like the wealthy old women I see near my office building in Manhattan in wheelchairs….Life has come to an end…Their money no longer means anything…Their health and strength is gone…All that matters at this point is….Do they have “oil” in their “lamp”?…..We all know from St Matthew today that this “oil” can not be bought nor can it be traded…This type of “oil” is the currency of holiness…Did they make the pursuit of a holy life a priority?…Or did they disregard the ways of God and trade God’s ways in for the things of this world?…Which at this point can no longer bring any benefit to them…..”Where is the wise one?…..Where is the scribe?…..Where is the debater of this age?….Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?”
”For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”
St Matthew assures us about the wise virgins in his story today…..........They were prepared!…......”Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour”….We can not have it both ways…..Some “things” are not for sale
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