Feast of St. Monica
The scripture readings for today's reflection can be found at Memorial of Saint Monica | USCCB
We hear in our gospel today the familiar parable of
the 10 virgins, 5 wise, and 5 foolish. With this parable, Jesus is helping us
to see how we are to live out our lives in anticipation to our eventual meeting
the Lord, whether it’s at the end of time with His 2nd coming, or
with our own eventual meeting God at the end of our own lives. We can ask
ourselves: do we live our lives in a way that’s pleasing to God? Are we
prepared to meet Him when the time comes? Or do we live out our lives like the
unwise virgins, living our lives with no concern for our eventual destiny:
entering heaven?
The lamps in today’s gospel can symbolize our hearts
and spirit, which we need to have trimmed and ready for God, by living a life
worthy of a follower of Christ. By keeping the commandment of love of God and
love of neighbor, our “lamps” will be “trimmed and ready” when God calls us to
meet the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
By not following God’s commandments and being focused
only on our selfish needs, we will not be ready to answer God’s call and run
the risk of having our Lord say, “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Monica, mother of
St. Augustine, who could be considered one of the “wise virgins”. She spent her
life doing God’s will in praying for the conversion of her son, Augustine. St.
Augustine (who’s feast we celebrate tomorrow) would, due to her prayers, come
to faith in Jesus Christ, Augustine would become not only a Christian, but a
bishop and doctor of the church. This is
how she “trimmed her lamp”: by constant prayer for Augustine to become a
Christian and receive salvation in his faith in Jesus Christ. Once God answered
her prayers and Augustine was a Christian, she became sick and was close to
death. In the Confessions of St. Augustine, he quotes his mother as saying, as
she was close to her death, “I do not know why I am here still here, since I
have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live
a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died.” God
answered her prayers, and she was ready to answer the call of the bridegroom
when the Lord called her. Her lamp was trimmed, and she was able to enter into
that heavenly banquet when God called her.
Let us imitate St. Monica by constantly praying for
those in our family who need our prayers to come to know that they are in need
of God’s love and forgiveness. Then we ourselves will in turn be ready for the
Bridegroom when He calls us to the heavenly banquet.
Very good reflection. It has always bothered me that the wise VIRGIN'S refused to give some of their oil to the foolish virgins, because giving & sharing is an essential aspect of the Christian life.
ReplyDeleteBut each person is responsible for doing what is necessary by obeying God & cultivating our relationship with God & praying. We can & should pray for others & show good example. But ultimately each person is responsible for our own behavior & relationship with God.