Sunday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time (Year B)
Commentary on Hosea 2:16-17,21-22; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6; Mark 2:18-22 (more…)
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Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr – Readings
Commentary on Hosea 2:16-17,21-22; Matthew 25:1-13
The Gospel reading comes from Matthew’s account of the end times where Jesus speaks of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and mingles it with images about the Second Coming of Jesus for the General Judgement. This section also contains three important parables linked to the Final Judgement.
We have the first of these parables as our reading for today’s feast. Not surprisingly, it is the Parable of the Ten bridesmaids, sometimes referred to as the “Ten Virgins”. Jesus says that the Kingdom of God (he uses the word “heaven”) can be compared to ten bridesmaids going out to welcome the bridegroom at a wedding.
Five of them were sensible and had foresight and the other five were foolish. The sensible ones took a reserve of oil for their lamps while the foolish ones did not. Then the groom took much longer to come than expected and all the young women became heavy-eyed and sleepy.
At midnight the call went up:
Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.
But as the bridesmaids trimmed their lamps, the foolish ones realised all their oil was used up. They asked the sensible young women to share some of their oil. They refused on the grounds that all of them would end up with not enough. They told the foolish bridesmaids to and get more oil.
But, while they were on their way, the groom arrived and those who were ready went into the wedding hall with him and the door was locked. When the foolish young women arrived, they begged for the door to be open:
Lord, lord, open to us.
But he answered with one of the most chilling statements in the gospel:
Truly I tell you, I do not know you.
The moral is then given—keep your eyes open:
…for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matt 25:13)
We know that in the very early Church many believed—and it is reflected in the earliest letter of Paul—that Jesus would come again during the believers’ lifetime (even in our own days, there are preachers who continue talk about the imminence of the ‘end times’).
As well, there are people who work on the principle of ‘eat, drink and be merry’ and straighten things out just before the end comes. Jesus is warning that this is not a very good plan. We do not know when the Bridegroom will come. We have no idea when life on our planet will come to an end. Even more practically, we do not know when our own time on this earth will terminate. The point of these Gospel texts is that, whenever it happens, we be ready, that our lamps are burning bright.
This is not a question of piling up good works and putting them into some celestial account. It is clear from the gospel that God does not work that way. What is important is that at any given moment we are in a right relationship with God. And how do we do that? We do it by seeking, finding and serving God in every experience of every day, finding and loving God in every person that comes into our life. Sometimes we will fail, but we just turn round and start all over again. What is most important is where we are when he calls us. Strangely enough, we guarantee the future by focusing on the present, on the here and now.
Cecilia was just such a faithful virgin who had consecrated her whole life to God, and in bringing others to know and love him and unhesitatingly, gave that life back to God.
The First Reading is a short passage from the prophet Hosea. The words describe the Lord speaking to Israel but they can be understood as describing the Lord calling someone to be espoused to him as his bride, very appropriate for someone like Cecilia who has vowed virginity and makes Christ her Spouse:
On that day, says the Lord, you will call me “my husband”…
The Lord then makes his proposal of marriage:
And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
Words again which apply so well to Cecilia who was truly a Bride of Christ, a Bride who was always ready with her lamp burning to greet her Lord.
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Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), Virgin and Martyr – Readings
Commentary on Hosea 2:16-17,21-22; Matthew 25:1-13
The Gospel reading for the feast is the parable of the Ten Bridesmaids from Matthew. It is one of three parables from near the end of Jesus’ public life in a section which deals mainly with the Second Coming of Christ and what is known as the General Judgement. The main theme of the three parables is the importance of being ready to meet Christ at the end of our lives.
The parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (or in some translations, the Ten Virgins) speaks of ten young women who go out to meet the bridegroom as he comes for the wedding ceremony. In our society, it is the groom who waits for the bride, but here it is the other way round. And though, in our time, traditionally brides have had the reputation for unpunctuality, here it is the man who causes the delay.
Each of the bridesmaids was carrying an oil lamp to greet the groom when he arrived. We are told that five of them were ‘wise’ and five were ‘foolish’. The foolish ones neglected to take extra oil with them, but the wise had brought flasks of oil in case of running short.
The bridegroom was long delayed and the young women became drowsy and even fell asleep. Then, at midnight, the cry went up:
Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.
By now, the lamps had all gone out and the foolish young women asked the wise to give them some oil for their lamps. The wise ones refused, saying that they did not have enough for all of them. They told the foolish ones to go and buy some for themselves.
While they were away, the bridegroom arrived and:
…those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut.
When the foolish young women came back, they asked for the locked door to be opened:
Lord, lord, open to us.
They then hear what are perhaps the most terrible words in the Gospels:
…I do not know you.
The message of the parable is clear. It is an image of our lives. Our life is a journey to our final goal—to be fully united with our Creator and Lord. But on the way we need to prepare ourselves; we need to be ready.
Jesus had said earlier in Matthew’s Gospel that we are to be the light of the world. But there is a danger that our light will go out. What is the oil we need to keep our light shining? The ‘oil’ is our maintaining a close relationship with Christ through steadfast prayer and living our lives in a constantly loving and caring relationship with those around us, especially those in greatest need, whatever that need may be. As long as we live in this way, there will be oil to keep our light shining. And we will know Jesus because we will recognise, love and serve him in our brothers and sisters. And, at the end, he too will know us. It will be a meeting of old friends.
But if we live our lives in self-seeking ways, Jesus will not be part of it, and at the end, he will not know us. Edith Stein, in the earlier part of her life, led a life where God had little or no part. But after her conversion and discovery of Christ, then she was indeed a “wise bridesmaid” in living faithfully her Carmelite vocation. And when the final trial came, she was ready to go in and meet her Lord, to whom she was already well known. Let us learn some of her wisdom.
The First Reading consists of verses from the prophet Hosea. This book uses the prophet’s own unfortunate marriage (where his wife Gomer was unfaithful to him) as an image of the relationship of the faithless Israel with Yahweh. And, just as Hosea felt he could not desert his wife because of her adultery, so Yahweh cannot abandon Israel. In today’s reading, Yahweh speaks of his loving relationship with Israel:
Therefore, I will now allure her
and bring her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her…she shall respond
as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
(NRSVue Translation*: Hosea 2:14-15)
Here the text speaks of the Exodus, of Yahweh leading out his people from the slavery of Egypt when they were more faithful to him than now. Then the prophet writes:
I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
(NRSVue Translation: *Hosea 2:19-20)
This is the promise Yahweh makes, in spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Despite her conversion to Christianity, Edith remained a Jew all her life. She could not be otherwise. But as a Carmelite Sister, Edith had become betrothed to the Lord and became the bride of Christ. And she remained unwaveringly faithful, even to the sacrifice of her life for her Spouse.
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*The verses in the Book of the Prophet Hosea are arranged slightly differently in different translations. The First Reading verses cited in the two quotations above are from the NRSVue Translation.