Thirty Second Sunday Year A

Mass for Deceased Priests and Religious

‘But at midnight there was a cry, “The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him.”’ It’s a cry all the bridesmaids heard; they were all there, but only those with their lamps trimmed because they had oil, were ready, and went with the bridegroom into the wedding hall. In this simple but deep parable Jesus speaks both of the final encounter at the end of our lives when Christ, the Bridegroom, will come to take us with him into the great heavenly banquet, and the day by day response on our part to the coming of the Kingdom of God among us. We are to be ready moment by moment to meet the Lord because, ultimately, the great focus of our lives is our definitive encounter with the Lord. We know the dying words of Teresa of Avila that showed how conscious she was of this: “Oh my Lord and my Spouse, now the desired hour is come. Now it is time for us to go.”

At today’s Mass we are remembering our sisters and brothers who have experienced that definitive encounter. In the words of the Second Reading, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus, it is our belief and hope that God has brought our sisters and brothers with him. Our hope is that they were ready, having spent their consecrated lives, purchasing, as it were, the oil of charity through their many works.  Our hope is that, yes indeed, their lamp of faith were trimmed with the charity that brought them to see the Spouse come to greet them with the words “Come, good and faithful servant and enter into the joy of the Lord”. In their heart, each one, though through different works and pathways, did what St. Paul exhorts us to do. In their lives, they presented their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which was their spiritual worship. We are grateful to them and to God for the gift they were to us, each in their own unique way. We entrust to God’s mercy any failure or sinfulness on their part.

Their journey is complete. Ours continues, both individually and as communities, and as a Diocese. It is easy for us to get distracted and forget the purpose for which we live -  the encounter with the Lord at the end of our personal or community journey, as well as the encounter with the Lord that happens day by day as we respond to God’s grace. Dust can settle on our eyes. We get distracted. We no longer see the Bridegroom who is coming to meet us. We can have the lamp of faith burning even brightly but the oil of charity, the oil of our soul, can diminish because we are tired or taken up by many things, even good things.

At the recent Synod, there was a line in the Working Document that said: “Trying to walk together also brings us into contact with the healthy restlessness of incompleteness”. As long as our heart is beating, we’ve not yet completed our journey individually, as a community, as a Diocese. All our works, no matter how good, are always in some sense incomplete. We experience in our lives the restlessness of incompleteness. That restlessness, however, can be a good thing. It’s what keeps us wanting and having to go to the shop to buy some more oil! When our patience is tried, when there’s a risk that pessimism will overwhelm us, when we feel bewildered by the pace of change, when we struggle to come to terms with our incapacity and vulnerability, then we really do need the supplement of the oil of that charity which believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things. It is charity that gives eyes to see the Bridegroom and go in with him into the hall of wedding Feast that opens up each time we love our neighbour and love one another. It is love that gives value to even the smallest of acts. Nothing is small that is done out of love. Yes, it is charity that prepares us for both the final encounter with the Lord and our correspondence day by day to the coming of the Kingdom of God among us.

It’s not that we can produce the oil of charity on our own. We need the intervention of the Holy Spirit. We need to humbly but confidently ask the Lord for it. We can make our own the prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola: “Lord, teach me to know you more, love you more and serve you more faithfully in my life”.

On this day, as we remember our sisters and brothers who have gone through the definitive encounter with the Lord, we renew our hope that we will be ready when our time comes. In the Apostolic letter on confidence in the merciful love of God on the 150th anniversary of the birth of the other Teresa, Teresa of Lisieux, Pope Francis wanted to underline for us all at this time in the Church how it is, in the words of Teresa, “confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love”. As he puts it, these striking words say it all. It is confidence that sustains us daily and will enable us to stand before the Lord on the day when he calls us to himself. He reminds us of the well-known quote from Teresa: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own Justice and to receive from your Love the eternal possession of yourself”.

Lord, help us be ready, prompt us to go out to meet you, grant us the bright wisdom to be alert, looking for and towards you always.