Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

November 7, 2020

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.7.20_Landry_ConCon.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday. We are preparing for the feast of Christ the King in two weeks and Jesus today is teaching us about his kingdom.

* He does so using an image that might seem a little strange to us but the details would have been very well understood by his contemporaries in Palestine. There were two main stages in a marriage. The first would be the exchange of vows. When this took place, they were married, but they would continue to live apart for a while, even up to a year, while the husband prepared everything to welcome his new wife into his home. The second stage was when the husband would come to the bride’s house to pick her up and take her to their new home. He would send out some of his groomsmen with word that the Bridegroom is coming, meaning that he could arrive within hours, days, or up to a week. He would be accompanied by all the guests from his side and meet his wife with all the guests from her side, her bridesmaids and others. Both groups would process back together to his home and when they arrived, they would celebrate the nuptials for eight days with all their friends and family — something they would consider far more enjoyable than leaving everyone behind for a honeymoon.

* In order to decrease on the amount of guests one would need to feed for eight days, the bridegroom sometimes would come in the middle of the night. Those who weren’t ready lost their spots. As soon as the Bridegroom took his Bride into his house, the doors would be shut, to prevent latecomers crashing their party. This wedding tradition, which was universal at Jesus’ time, is still found today in certain parts of the Holy Land and Middle East.

* Jesus used that image as the background to communicate to us how we should be living in his kingdom, preparing for his return as Bridegroom at the end of our life or at the end of the world, whichever comes first. Jesus contrasts five wise bridesmaids versus five foolish ones, wanting us to imitate the lessons we see in the five wise ones. November is the month in which the whole Church reflects on the four last things — death, judgment, heaven and hell — and Jesus by this image tries to help us prepare well for the first two, so that we may experience the third and avoid the fourth. But for this to happen, we need to learn three crucial lessons from the wise virgins.

* The first lesson is vigilancefor the Bridegroom’s coming. The heralds have already gone out to announce that Jesus is coming. We need to be ready to go with him whenever he arrives. Death, for a Christian, is not meant to be a scary thing. It’s the time when Jesus the Bridegroom comes for us to take us to His home when we will celebrate with him forever. We’re called to await him with eager longing, with great expectation. He wants the lamps of our hearts burning for him, full of the oil of love. The best way for us to stay alert for the return of the Bridegroom is for us to be ready, with hearts burning with love, for the presence of the Bridegroom now. The more we long for Jesus in the Eucharist, the more we attentively listen to his Word in Sacred Scripture, the more we seek to recognize him in the persons and events of each day, and love and embrace them as we would love and embrace Christ, the more ready we will be ready to embrace Christ when he...