More wisdom

Yesterday our women's group discussed the readings for this coming Sunday. The Gospel reading concerns the 10 virgins invited to a wedding feast. Although all 10 fell asleep, 5 were prepared: they had ample supplies of oil for their lamps, and were able to enter the feast. The other 5 were unprepared, and although they tried to borrow oil at the last minute, they missed out on the feast.

Terry led our meeting this week, and she'd found a wonderful quote from Fr. John Kavanaugh, S.J. It is a bit long, but it is well worth reading. With thanks to Terry and to Fr. Kavanaugh, I include it here:

...Everybody values, but few value what is valuable. Wisdom is not so much knowing what one values as it is valuing something that is worthy of our care. We celebrate choice, but choices are a dime a dozen. What is rare is a wise choice...

We have a gospel. It portrays ten bridesmaids, five of them foolish, five wise. The foolish ones have brought no oil reserve for their lamps, in case the first allotment runs out. The groom is late. Finally, he appears at midnight. The unprepared call out to the others, "Give us some oil." But the provident tell the foolish to get their own. And so the chance is missed, the door barred, even as those left behind cry for opening. It is too late. The  moral of the story: "Keep our eyes open, for you know not the day or the hour."

There's the wisdom. We never know the hour or the day. All ten bridesmaids, recall, were asleep. The difference was that five of them were prepared. The point is not that we should calculate when destiny might arrive. It is that we should be ready for it every moment of our lives. 

Readings that deal with the "end times" are not prognostications of the future, even though, with the church's year-end apocalyptic texts, we are reminded of the "four last things." That can be instructive, yes, but it is far wiser to think of the things that last. It is a mistake to take such passages as occult predictions concerning the end of the world. It is far wiser to see them as a way to wisdom at the start of each day. Each day may be our last. The farewell we give might never be given again. We may not see another day.

To be wise, then, is not to calculate the time of departure. It is to spend the present moment - the waiting  - well.

We rush through time to get things done. When we are not getting things done, we think we are wasting time. But the real waste of time is the way we rush through it. We may think we are active, but we are really inattentive. In hurrying to prepare ourselves for things not yet upon us, we are unprepared for what is here. And sooner or later, our gas runs out...

The last things are the lasting things: this moment of gratitude, this one gift of another breath, this particular person before me, this chance to hope, this hour to believe...