JUST TRYING TO BE SENSIBLE
Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time Scriptural Readings: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8; Psalm 97:1+2b, 5-6, 10, 11-12; Matthew 25:1-13
My dear encountered couples:
We all have days when we just don’t feel up to praying. We are extremely tired, have a terrible headache, we are sick. We might be able to glance God’s way a bit, but to get down to some serious praying we just feel we cannot do it. Other days we find praying easy and enjoyable. Though we should try our best on bad days as well as good to take time to turn our thoughts and hearts to God in serious prayer, the time may come for all of us when to do so is just not possible. Who knows what might happen to us in the future? We might someday become incapacitated, mentally and physically. To prepare for that possibility we need now to store up an extra supply of the spiritual strength that comes through prayer. We must save up, so to speak, for those “rainy days”.
“The reign of God can be likened to ten bridesmaids who took their torches and went out to welcome the groom,” Jesus tells us. “Five of them were foolish, five were sensible. The foolish ones, in taking their torches, brought no oil along, but the sensible ones took flasks of oil as well as their torches. The groom delayed his coming. When he finally did come, the foolish ones said to the sensible, ‘Give us some of your oil. Our torches are going out.’ But the sensible ones replied, ‘No, there may not be enough for you and us. You had better go to the dealers and buy yourselves some.’
While they went off to buy it the groom arrived, and the ones who were ready went in to the wedding with him. Then the door was barred. Later the other bridesmaids came back. ‘Master, master!’ they cried. ‘Open the door for us.’ But he answered, ‘I tell you, I do not know you.’ The moral is: Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day or the hour.”
Let us pray as well as we can on our good days. Then if and when bad ones come we will be prepared. Wouldn’t you say that’s the sensible thing to do?
