Paul tells the Corinthians that God chose to save through what looks like foolishness, and that the wisdom of the wise will be undone. Today's parable is about people who did the sensible thing and people who did not — and the sensible thing turns out to be something no one else can do for you.
Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The kingdom of heaven shall be like ten virgins, who, taking their lamps, went out to meet the groom and the bride. But five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For the five foolish, having brought their lamps, did not take oil with them. Yet truly, the prudent ones brought the oil, in their containers, with the lamps. Since the bridegroom was delayed, they all fell asleep, and they were sleeping. But in the middle of the night, a cry went out: 'Behold, the groom is arriving. Go out to meet him.' Then all those virgins rose up and trimmed their lamps. But the foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us from your oil, for our lamps are being extinguished.' The prudent responded by saying, 'Lest perhaps there may not be enough for us and for you, it would be better to go to the sellers and buy some for yourselves.' But while they were going to buy it, the groom arrived. And those who were prepared entered with him to the wedding, and the door was closed. Yet truly, at last, the remaining virgins also arrived, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' But he responded by saying, 'Amen I say to you, I do not know you.' And so you must be vigilant, because you do not know the day or the hour." (Mt 25:1-13)
Start with the detail we usually pass over: all ten fell asleep. Not five. All of them. The wise ones did not spend the night pacing with their eyes on the road. They dozed off exactly like the others, and nothing in the text reproaches them for it.
So whatever the parable is asking, it is not asking us to stay awake. That would be a strange thing to ask, and Jesus does not ask it. The difference between the two groups was settled long before the night began, in an ordinary decision made in daylight: some of them filled a small flask before leaving the house.
The oil, then, is not alertness. It is whatever we have quietly accumulated before the moment of testing — and the parable's hardest line tells us what kind of thing that is. "Lest perhaps there may not be enough for us and for you."
This has always sounded ungenerous, and commentators have tied themselves in knots trying to make the wise girls kinder. But the refusal is not stinginess; it is a statement of fact. There are things that cannot be transferred at the door. No one can believe in my place. No one can have loved, in my stead, the people I was given to love. No one can have prayed the hours I did not pray. Not because God forbids the sharing, but because these things are not objects. They are the shape a life has taken.
We know this outside religion too. A friend cannot sit our examination, however willing. A colleague cannot acquire our competence for us the morning it is needed. The generosity that would help arrives too late because the thing required is not a commodity.
Today the Church remembers Augustine, and no one illustrates this better. He spent the first half of his life running on other people's oil. The certainties of the Manichees, which spared him the trouble of deciding. The prestige of rhetoric, which let him be admired for words he did not believe. And, for years, the faith of his mother, which he could lean on precisely because it was hers and not his — Monica prayed, wept, followed him across the sea, and none of it could be poured into his lamp.
What changed was not that he finally received her oil. It is that at some point, in a garden in Milan, he stopped borrowing and let something be his own. "Late have I loved you." The lateness is real, and he never pretended otherwise. But he came himself.
And that is where the parable's severity turns out to be its mercy. The five foolish ones are not condemned for arriving late. They are shut out because, when the cry came, they left. They went off to the shops in the middle of the night to buy what they should have brought, and the bridegroom arrived while they were away. Had they simply come as they were, with unlit lamps, there is nothing in the story to suggest the door would have closed on them.
That is worth holding onto, because most of us will recognise the reflex. When we sense we are not ready, our instinct is to go and get ready somewhere else — to postpone the meeting until we have something presentable to bring. The Gospel's warning is aimed at that detour, not at the empty flask.
In the spirit of Bethlehem, this is entirely consistent. God came at an hour nobody had marked, to people with nothing prepared: shepherds who were working, an inn with no room, a young couple caught out by the timing. Nobody in that story had oil. What they had was the willingness to come as they were, at once, without going to fetch credentials first.
So the parable leaves two questions rather than one. What am I quietly storing up on ordinary days, since it cannot be lent to me on the night? And when the cry comes and I know I am unprepared — will I go out to meet him anyway, or will I go shopping?
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Father, all ten fell asleep, and you did not reproach them for it; you asked only that something be ready that no one else could carry for them. Give us the small daily fidelity that fills the flask when nothing is happening. And when the cry comes and we know how little we have, keep us from turning aside to make ourselves presentable: let us come as we are, at once, to meet your Son. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Meditation
- What in our faith are we still running on someone else's oil?
- What small thing, done on ordinary days, is quietly filling our flask?
- When we feel unprepared, do we go out to meet him, or do we go looking for something to bring?
