Love: the virtue of prudent and vigilant waiting.

 Roman Rite

XXXII Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A – November 8, 2026

Wis 6:12-16; Ps 62; 1 Thess 4:13-18 [4:13-14]; Mt 25:1-13

 

Ambrosian Rite

Is 24, 16b-23; Ps 79; 1 Cor 15:22-28; Mk 13:1-27

First Sunday of Advent – ‘The Coming of the Lord’ - Year B 

 

1) True vigilance is prudent.

It is realistic to recognize that our earthly life is fragile. How can we not recognize ourselves in the very short poem of the Italian poet “You feel like leaves on trees in autumn”? If we have the grace to believe, we experience this transience not as frustration to be avoided by trying to taste the present moment. For the Christian, life, however fragile it may be, is vigilance, waiting for an encounter and pilgrimage towards true and eternal Life. Without the prospect of an encounter full of meaning and bearing eternity, the meaning of life is disrupted: life gives in to the frenzy to hide despair.

To help us live this vigilance that becomes pilgrimage, today's Gospel offers us the parable of the ten virgins which, moreover, illustrates the saying of Mt 24:42: “Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come”. (Mt 24,42)

If, on the one hand, the emphasis is on the need to be ready so as not to be excluded from the wedding feast, on the other, it is recalled that vigilant and prudent waiting concerns the coming of the glorious Christ, applying to him the image of the groom that the Old Testament uses for God.

Telling of a group of ten virgins, who are divided into two categories: five are wise and five are foolish like those who build on rock or sand (cf. Mt 7:24-27), St. Matthew refers to the way in which the wedding between the Jews of Jesus' time took place, which also involved a procession of young women (the term virgin here has this meaning), who accompanied the spouses, usually towards evening (this explains the use of lamps).

The groom went to his future wife's father's house to take her to his house, but first he had to conclude the agreements of the marriage contract with her father. It could happen that there were still negotiations to be concluded and that things were dragging on. The five wise virgins show that they are farsighted and ready to face any eventuality, bringing with them oil to power their lamps, in case the wait becomes longer than expected.

What distinguishes the two groups of virgins is not vigilance, but prudence in foreseeing the unexpected. In fact, the Gospel passage tells us that they all dozed off and fell asleep when the possibility of delay occurred.

Why were some prudent and others not? It wasn't just a matter of common sense, but of love.

It is love that is the virtue with which one lives an alert and prudent waiting. If one intensely and ardently waits for the loved one, one prepares him or herself and provides all the necessary measures, tools, and every other detail to ensure that this wait is fulfilled as best as possible in the encounter with the Groom.

 It is just like the attitude of these prudent and careful virgins, who await the groom with the lamps on, after having provided a supply of oil.  Unlike the five foolish girls, they have taken every precautionary measure, because they are in love with the groom they await. Even if sleep surprises them, they have already prudently purchased the oil precisely to avoid the risk of not being able to meet the Groom, adding their light to that of Christ and walking with Him towards the wedding feast. If they had not been motivated by love, they would not have provided for themselves with oil and would have been without the light of love. Only love towards Christ, the Bridegroom who comes to introduce us to his Kingdom, motivates us to a prudent, industrious and assiduous expectation, also devoid of all fear, because even if the body sleeps, the heart watches.

 

2) The oil of the lamp is love.

It should be kept in mind that it is the Groom who loves first, the wait is not the cause of the encounter, but it is not achieved without the wait that the vigilant heart keeps alive.  We also keep this expectation aroused by praying: “O God, you are my God, it is you I seek! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, in a land parched, lifeless, and without water. I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory. For your love is better than life; my lips shall ever praise you! I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands, calling on your name. My soul shall be sated as with choice food, with joyous lips my mouth shall praise you! I think of you upon my bed, I remember you through the watches of the night. You indeed are my savior, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. ( Psalm 63 -Responsorial Psalm of today's Mass)

But why is the heart of prudent virgins, however open they may be while waiting for the Groom, closed to sharing the oil with other girls, who ask them with worried insistence? 

I’d like to propose a spiritual interpretation of it: “The lamp is common to all virgins; the oil they recast is a gift they have received from the One who increases it. Every virgin must lovingly nourish the relationship with the one who comes, before the oil of love fails. For this reason, it cannot be transferred from one to the other, it can only be received by those who can give it to everyone. The oil of the relationship of love cannot be purchased and experienced through an interposed person. It is given by the Groom who is its reserve and who pours it into small jars. The important thing is not to have much of it, but to see that it does not fail and that the lamp remains lit until the arrival of the groom” (D. Mongillo, For the Spirit in Christ to the Father,Bose, Ed. Qiqajon, 2005 pp. 16-19).

Of course, the phrase of today's Gospel: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour”, does not address only the people called to virginity. It is valid for all Christians and for all times. Vigilance should be understood as an overall vital attitude made of desire and attention, of industrious love and hope.

 Wise virgins are those people who, seizing the favorable moment to do good while they are on this Earth, have prepared to present themselves at the coming of the Lord. Fools are those people, inattentive and dull, who care only for the things present and, forgetting God's promises, do not keep alive the hope of the resurrection. 

An example of how to live our daily existence, at home or at work, comes to us from the consecrated virgins.

With the total gift of themselves to Christ the Groom, these women show that one can live life as expectation, making the day, work and occupations a step towards the infinite, that is, with the body on the ground but with the soul in heaven. These consecrated women testify to us that one can only “worry” about Christ. Their only “worry” is to be women of prayer who look up where joy reigns. 

 It is the specific of their vocation, as the prayer that the Bishop makes on the day of consecration recalls: “Hear, O God, the prayer of your Church and look with goodness at these daughters of yours; you who called them for a plan of love, guide them on the path of eternal salvation, so that they always seek what pleases you and with assiduous and vigilant fidelity bring it to completion. For Christ our Lord” (Ritual of the Consecration of the Virgins)