Spiritual Slighting!

Friday, August 30, 2024

1 Cor 1:17-25; Mt 25:1-13

Today’s Gospel invites us to be earnestly sincere about things that concern the Lord!

The parable of the ten bridesmaids presents that five of them are wise and five others foolish. 

Since it is not one individual who is wise or foolish, how can we explain the group behaviour of the five who are wise and the other five who are foolish? 

Researchers demonstrate that almost everything is contagious in social networks. Citing obesity, happiness, and loneliness as examples, they have established that a person’s friends have more influence on whether he or she will be obese, happy, or lonely than a person’s spouse. 

In the Gospel, five bridesmaids were wise because everyone in the group cared about preparations to meet with the bridegroom, while the other set was foolish because everyone in the group was unconcerned and carefree. 

The wise bridesmaids show their wisdom in meticulous preparation to meet the bridegroom. The flasks of oil they get ready with are symbolic of their common objective and shared toil. Hence, it is a collective success for them. 

On the contrary, by failing to plan for flasks of oil to meet the bridegroom, the foolish bridesmaids plan to fail. Either they take the meeting with the bridegroom for granted or they slight the bridegroom himself. However, it is a collective failure for them. 

Moreover, the wise ones are marked by a certain inward longing to meet the bridegroom. Such inwardness is entirely missing out on the foolish ones. 

Likewise, while the wise ones show autonomy, the foolish ones even miss out on the gift of imitation, so they cannot pick up clues from the preparatory arrangements of the wise ones. 

The behaviour of the foolish bridesmaids reveals what we can understand as ‘spiritual slighting.’ Their unwillingness to prepare for meeting the Lord manifests their profound disregard for the holy. How else can we explain the fact that they went to meet the bridegroom without the flasks of oil? 

Hence, the case of the foolish bridesmaids shows that ‘there is more to see than what the eye meets.’ 

Though subtle, their behaviour does not demonstrate the attitude proper to await with excitement to meet with the bridegroom and to spend time in his company. 

Let us pray that, like the wise bridesmaids, we may concern ourselves with the things of the Lord!

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar