Lit and Awake
By Michael Temperante and Christelle Lee
November 12, 2017
November 12, 2017
There are things in life that are inevitable and one of those is routine. This routine we have is imbedded in our subconscious. We see routine as something systematic and necessary for our daily lives and often we overlook that this routine we have is actually a preparation we do for whatever the day has in stored for us. Sometimes we face the day prepared, sometimes we are don’t. The latter one has a lot of external factors like failure to anticipate, lack of preparation, or just an unfortunate circumstance. This leads us to another inevitable fact in our lives, something we will all face eventually: death.
Death comes knocking on our respective doors when it is time to go and terrifying as it is, death doesn’t call and let us know ahead of time, it doesn’t make appointments. He’s that friend that just shows up without notice.
Today’s gospel is about the parable of the ten virgins. The ten virgins had lamps of their own and was to meet the bridegroom. Half had oil and the other half had none, and so when the time came to meet the bridegroom, those who didn’t have any oil were forced to go and buy some. Whilst they were buying, the bridegroom arrived and along those prepared virgins, they started the feast and locked the gates, locking out the other half. Upon their arrival, they begged for the bridegroom to opened the gates and let them in, but they were not known and so they were locked out.
We prepare so much in our lives, for breakfast, an exam, admission of things, and many more but we don’t prepare for the arrival of the kingdom of God. We even prepare for death, we stay vigilant of our surrounding, our health— both physical and mental—but almost never or little with the kingdom of God. We are the virgins in the parable and some of us are prepared, some are not. The lamp is a determiner of our worthiness if we are to enter the kingdom of God and failure to keep that lamp lit is negligence on our part as we are all aware that that little light of ours is supposed to be present all the time. The light is our faith. It is difficult to keep that lamp of ours lit especially with the harshness of the times, both in the macroscale and the microscale, but that should not be a hindrance or an impediment for us to do our part and responsibility as followers of God. God definitely will be arriving and welcoming us to his kingdom, but we must also do our part and keep the lamp lighted. Despite the individual dispositions we have in life, I hope we remain loving of God, of our neighbours, of ourselves because really, the times are so harsh and we need less of those negative things that the world throws at us. We need more of faith, hope, and love. As Christians we are not only tasked to love God as how we love ourselves, but we ought to love our neighbours as we love him and ourselves, doing so, I believe is one of the best ways to keep that light going.
Death comes knocking on our respective doors when it is time to go and terrifying as it is, death doesn’t call and let us know ahead of time, it doesn’t make appointments. He’s that friend that just shows up without notice.
Today’s gospel is about the parable of the ten virgins. The ten virgins had lamps of their own and was to meet the bridegroom. Half had oil and the other half had none, and so when the time came to meet the bridegroom, those who didn’t have any oil were forced to go and buy some. Whilst they were buying, the bridegroom arrived and along those prepared virgins, they started the feast and locked the gates, locking out the other half. Upon their arrival, they begged for the bridegroom to opened the gates and let them in, but they were not known and so they were locked out.
We prepare so much in our lives, for breakfast, an exam, admission of things, and many more but we don’t prepare for the arrival of the kingdom of God. We even prepare for death, we stay vigilant of our surrounding, our health— both physical and mental—but almost never or little with the kingdom of God. We are the virgins in the parable and some of us are prepared, some are not. The lamp is a determiner of our worthiness if we are to enter the kingdom of God and failure to keep that lamp lit is negligence on our part as we are all aware that that little light of ours is supposed to be present all the time. The light is our faith. It is difficult to keep that lamp of ours lit especially with the harshness of the times, both in the macroscale and the microscale, but that should not be a hindrance or an impediment for us to do our part and responsibility as followers of God. God definitely will be arriving and welcoming us to his kingdom, but we must also do our part and keep the lamp lighted. Despite the individual dispositions we have in life, I hope we remain loving of God, of our neighbours, of ourselves because really, the times are so harsh and we need less of those negative things that the world throws at us. We need more of faith, hope, and love. As Christians we are not only tasked to love God as how we love ourselves, but we ought to love our neighbours as we love him and ourselves, doing so, I believe is one of the best ways to keep that light going.