Thanks to Troy Borst for the phrase B.y.o.o. (Bring Your Own Oil)
1. You bring your own oil when you realize that you have no control over the moment of the groom's arrival and it may be a while, but when he arrives, it will be a surprise. Rev. 22:7 says, “I am coming back quickly.” It takes place at night in our Gospel parable today because it's supposed to be unexpected.
The wise virgins had lamps lit with oil that sustained them for the journey and for the inevitable sleep that overtook all ten of them. The sleep here, as our Second Reading suggests, is a clear reference to death, where we will meet the bridegroom face to face for our individual and irrevocable particular judgment.
Song of Solomon 5:2 says, “I was sleeping, but my heart was awake,” and our First Reading describes this as wisdom; seeing time as it truly is – the threshold of eternity. Wisdom is like prudence, a sense of the big picture.
Our First Reading, in verse 15, promises that with wisdom you can have a peaceful outlook, “whoever for her sake keeps vigil shall quickly be free from care; you will soon find peace of mind.”
Keeping vigil means staying vigilant in the night.
e.g. In the ancient Qumran community one finds the members taking turns to study one third of the night. References to night-study are frequent, for example, Rabbi Johana said: The full crop of the Torah is garnered only at night, for so it says in Proverbs 31:15, 'She riseth also while it is yet night' and it is also written, 'Arise, cry out in the night' in Lamentations 2:19. Both these verses were understood to refer to the study of the Torah at night (source: Cant. R. V. 11, para. 1 pp. 239 f.).
The passage from Lamentations is particularly interesting. Here David is said to sleep until midnight and then rise to study Torah (Lam. R. II. 18-19, para. 22). Thus, midnight is deemed the special hour of revelation at which time the scholars should be at their scrolls. Therefore, when our Gospel today says, “At midnight, there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” carries an important message for us of reading Scripture or some spiritual reading in the evening or if you find yourself unable to sleep at midnight.
2. BBOO also means to put up with a little inconvenience as our Gospel today says, "But the wise took oil in jars along with their lamps"--a little inconvenient to carry a lamp in one hand, and a jar in the other.
Our Gospel says, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.
A lamp is trimmed when the wick is turned either up or down to regulate the amount of flame. If a lamp is empty of oil, it does not matter how much one trims it—the lamp will go out when the oil is consumed.
A lamp trimmer used to be a position on a ship. This person had to keep the lamp reservoirs filled with oil and wicks trimmed every few hours. The application is that sanctifying grace has to be kindled by actual graces and frequent confession at regular intervals. Then it’s much easier to avoid the near occasions of sin, thereby guarding ourselves against possible falls.
The five foolish virgins show us that you cannot walk by the light of someone else’s lamp. ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise ones replied, 'No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Then the door was locked. Maybe they thought that they could repent at the hour of death, but that would not work if one is caught unaware.
The oil is the Holy Spirit. John 14:17 speaks of, "He dwelleth in you" Sanctifying grace is the soul is also called Charity.
Unfortunately, mortal sin extinguishes the lamp in our soul unless we get it re-lit though the Sacrament of Confession.
e.g. At Qumran, archeologists found many ritual baths because the community knew that the Messiah would come from the East and march right by their community. So, they had all these ritual baths because God forbid, they ever got impure by staying in sin.
Preparedness for a Christian is receiving the sacrament of penance.
In the document “Caritas in veritate”, Pope Benedict XVI insists that charity must always start from the truth and that even charity without truth cannot exist.
We tend to equate love almost entirely with affection. But according to St. Paul, love is equal parts affection and truth. 1 Corinthians 13:6 says that, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
Charity must be judged by truth or it slips into sentimentality. Truth is the boundary of love. So even God’s Commands are in line with love. How does love protect us against deception? It does so by defining what is truth and what is deception.
The wise ones told the foolish ones: “Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.’ While they went off to buy it, the bridegroom came.
St. Augustine says that, “the sellers of oil are the flatterers who, praising what is false or unknown, lead souls into error […]. When they were inclined to exterior things and sought to entertain themselves in their customary pleasures, having no taste for interior joys, He who judges arrived.”
Tepid souls seek solace in sin, which is a real and present danger for all of us on tough days.
The motif of being too late is often seen in dreams when we arrive too late to catch a plane or train, ship or bus. Or, we may find ourselves starting a journey but with the feeling of being far behind, or alternately, have a great task set before us that we are overwhelmed by because it is too late to start it, and variations on those themes, says John A. Sanford.
Our Gospel says, “those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked.”
There is a “door” that leads to heaven. It is the door of God’s grace, held open by the bloody cross of Jesus Christ.
Today the door is still open, but our Gospel reminds us that the door will not be open forever. Either you go through the door by faith, and baptism and staying in the state of grace, which is staying saved, while you are alive, or you will never go through at all.
Joyce Myer says, “Oh, here we go, it's not somebody else's job to come along and keep you happy, and encouraged, and stirred up. Come on. This is where you should get smacked a little bit by the Word. Get you kinda... "Whoo", straighten up there and re-fan your fire, and yes, be encouraged if you need that. We need to hear all sides of it. And you're gonna find in these parables that really, they're all saying the same thing but in a different way and that is: you better do what's right, now, otherwise you will lose your reward because the time is gonna come when we are all gonna give an accounting.
I conclude with part of a sermon by Willimon which provides a surprise ending and a "closed door" warning--
When I was serving in a little church in rural Georgia, one of my members had a relative who died. The funeral was in a little, hot, crowded, off-brand Baptist country church. Well, I had never seen anything like it. They wheeled the coffin in; the preacher began to preach. He shouted, fumed, and flailed his arms. "It's too late for Joe," he screamed. "He might have wanted to do this or that in life, but it's too late for him now. He's dead. It's all over for him. He might have wanted to straighten his life out, but he can't now. It's over...." "But it ain't too late for you! People drop dead every day. So why wait? Now is the day for decision. Now is the time to make your life count for something. Give your life to Jesus!" Well, it was the worst thing I ever heard. "Can you imagine a preacher doing that kind of thing to a grieving family?" I asked Patsy on the way home. "I've never heard anything so manipulative, cheap, and inappropriate. I would never preach a sermon like that," I said. She agreed. "Of course," she added, "the worst part of all is that what he said was true." ("What Time Is It?" in A Cloud of Witnesses, ed. Long and
Plantinga, Jr. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994] 108-10.
Amen.
