Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 16 2025

Scripture Study for

Israel’s wisdom tradition is a compilation of the insights gleaned from reflection on life experience. The book of Wisdom makes a bold claim, namely, that Wisdom is perceived by those who love her, found by those who search for her. Actually, one’s love of and search for Wisdom are evidence that one is already wise. It should be noted that while people search for Wisdom, Wisdom is also in search of them, moving through the highways and byways of life. Those who find Wisdom find peace and security, meaning and fulfillment. And once she has been found, one will be able to see her everywhere.

The concern of early Christians over the death of some of their number suggests that they believed that living the new life in Christ would exempt them from physical death. Thus they questioned both the authenticity of the faith of the deceased and the trustworthiness of this new life. Paul seeks to encourage those struggling with the death of a loved one and with questions of faith. He explains that those truly joined to Jesus are delivered from the power of death, for not even death can separate them from the love of Christ. Finally, at the end of time, all believers will be decisively joined with the Lord.

The parable of the ten virgins is told against the background of Palestinian wedding customs. Several features of the parable mark its end-of-time character. The most obvious are the banquet itself and the idea of waiting in darkness for an event to occur without knowing exactly when it will come to pass. The difference between the virgins is their preparedness. Half of them made provision for the possible delay of the bridegroom, the other half did not. This parable recounts the passage from the present age to the age of fulfillment. One is either ready to cross that threshold, or one is not. Jesus’ exhortation is simple but strong: Be alert!

Jan 12 2025

Trembling, But Confident

A friend told me that this parable frightened her when she was little. What if she was foolish and forgot her oil and Jesus abandoned her and she was cast out into the darkness?

A teenager told me about a time when she was five years old. She had come in from playing, and found the curtains drawn and her darkened house empty. Her parents and siblings were nowhere. She sat down and sobbed, thinking that the end-times had come. Jesus had taken them and she had been left behind.

As the sun grows dimmer and the church calendar draws toward its close, we hear much about the final judgment. The Jews of Jesus’ day expected Almighty God to declare war on evil at any moment and hold all people accountable for their deeds. Some of Jesus’ apocalyptic words feel foreboding. Be ready. The end is coming. If there is “a test,” will I pass it? Am I Christian enough? Might I be among the foolish, one who has messed up just too many times?

On the other hand, we might identify with the smart virgins: I am pious. I say my prayers. I am Christian enough. Perhaps everyone will “pass” at the end of time, for God is merciful. Might God choose to hand everyone an “A”?

Which is it? Well—both—and neither.

Yes, the end is coming, whether at our own death or at the conclusion of time. But panic only paralyzes, and presumption makes us imprudent. In wisdom, how are we to approach the Blessed One at judgment? Holy fear and a bit of awestruck trembling are needed. So is the graced conviction that we are profoundly loved and radically forgiven. Awe and confidence walk together hand in hand.

Consider/Discuss

Christian faith is full of paradox. As we prepare for “the end,” how do we keep a healthy balance between holy fear and graced confidence? Toward which side do you tend to lean?
Should the “wise” virgins give some of their oil to the “foolish” ones? Should God give everyone an “A” on the final exam? Why or why not?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus our Bridegroom, you don’t only come in a rush at the end of time. Sometimes you tiptoe in quietly and beckon to us in the depths of our conscience. We know that our end is coming. Give us a touch of holy fear to help us heed you now so we are ready then. Do not let our love grow cold as we wait for you. Come to us, Spirit of warmth, and keep our lamps burning brightly.

Jan 12 2025

Scripture Study for

The figure of Woman (or Lady) Wisdom constantly seeks to instruct anyone who will listen. As “the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness” (7:26), she is the perfect teacher. She is not aloof or inaccessible, but is available to anyone who seeks her out, watching for her, keeping vigil, as she moves through life making her presence known. But only those who work to master her teachings and conform their lives to them are “worthy of her.” Those who do so will gain prudence and wisdom and thus become “righteous.” Those who forsake her teaching, on the other hand, will be remain “foolish” and therefore “unrighteous.”

The Thessalonians were apparently concerned that those who had died before the return of Christ had perished. Paul reminds them that the resurrection of Christ was only the beginning, that all the baptized would be raised as Christ was. This is why Paul can refer to the dead as having merely “fallen asleep.” In fact, at the glorious coming of Christ, the dead, having been raised, will be the first to join Christ in his glory. Drawing on standard apocalyptic images (angels, trumpets, Christ coming on clouds), Paul paints an image of the parousia, the hinge-point between the present age and the coming age. Paul’s audience is assured that, dead or alive, those who are in Christ will be with him forever.

The parable of the ten virgins draws on the biblical wisdom motif of the distinction between the wise and the foolish. The wise are those who seek to understand the will of God and to live accordingly; they are the righteous. The foolish are not necessarily intellectually stupid, but they are “spiritually” stupid, often wicked, and certainly on the wrong path. In the parable, the foolish virgins represent those who are unprepared because they have failed to heed Jesus’ teaching. Readers sometimes fault the wise virgins for being stingy, but the point is that the wise are able to do nothing for the foolish when they wait until it is too late to order their lives properly.

Jan 06 2025

Taking the Long View

To get the full impact of the first reading, I strongly suggest you go to your Bible and read Second Maccabees, Chapter 7. You wonder what the mother of the Maccabees would have said to the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus over belief in the resurrection of the body. How would this woman, who watched the thugs of a sadistic king cruelly torture with whips and scourges her seven sons over their refusal to eat pork, ever have been able to encourage her sons to remain faithful to God’s law without a belief in the resurrection? This belief was her rock. It justified her taking the long view, that their death, in fidelity to God, gives way to a bodily resurrection.

For the Sadducees, however, faith was based on the Torah (the Pentateuch). Only what was written in the Torah had to be believed. Since there is no mention of resurrection, they rejected it. And they use a story of a woman marrying seven brothers to trap Jesus. Jesus says two things in response. First, what happens in the next life is going to be different, not the same old, same old. Second, when God spoke the divine Name to Moses, God did not say, “I was the God of your dead ancestors.” Rather, God said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Implication: God is a God of the living—in God all are alive.

Couple that with Jesus’ own resurrection and you have good reason for this hope we carry in our hearts.

Consider/Discuss

What does belief in the resurrection of the body tell you about God?
What does it tell you about your own body? Does it have any implications for how you treat your body?

Responding to the Word

God of the living, we thank you for the promise you have given us in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We thank you for the faith that tells us that those who die in him will rise in him. May this promise, rooted in our baptism, continue to give us hope in our difficulties.

Jan 06 2025

Scripture Study for

The reason given for the murders described in the first reading leaves no doubt in our minds that these are genuine martyrs, faithful Israelites who died for their faith. The real point of this narrative is the faith in resurrection. Early Israel believed that justice would be accomplished in this life, either during the time of those directly involved or in the time of their descendants. The idea of individual reward or punishment after death became a major issue after the experience of the Exile. This reading reflects the shift that took place in Israel’s thinking around the time of the Maccabean revolt (c. 167 B.C.E.).

Paul prays for encouragement and strength for the Thessalonians. Though he asks that they pray for him, he is not concerned with his own personal needs, but with the progress of the gospel that he preaches. When he also asks them to pray for his own deliverance from opposition, he is less concerned with the consequences of the persecution in his life than with how it might set up obstacles for the progress of the gospel. He places his trust in the faithfulness of the Lord. It is Christ who will strengthen the believers, be their protection, and keep them on the path of righteousness.

The Sadducees, who claimed to be descendants of Zadok, the high priest at the time of David, were a conservative, aristocratic group who cooperated with the Romans and enjoyed a certain amount of privilege as a result. Unlike the Pharisees, they did not believe in the resurrection, and they used ridicule to demonstrate that the belief in it was foolish. In response to them, Jesus employs a very traditional Jewish method of argument. He points out that if one is in covenant with God, not even death can sever the bond of that union. His method of interpreting may be unfamiliar to us today, but Jesus employed it effectively to counter the challenge of the Sadducees.