32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

 Wis. 6:12–16; 1 Thes.4:13–18, and Mt. 25:1–13.

In Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot, two men, Vladimir and Estragon, spend their time beside a lonely road waiting for someone called Godot. They talk, argue, joke, remember, forget, become tired, think of leaving, and then continue waiting. At the end of the day, a boy arrives with the disappointing message that Godot will not come that evening but will surely come tomorrow. Tomorrow arrives, and again they wait. The play is sometimes funny because the two men hardly know what to do with themselves while waiting. In fact, it resembles some of our own waiting. At a doctor’s clinic we look at the clock every three minutes and become restless. At an airport, when the board says “Delayed,” suddenly everybody becomes an aviation expert. Human beings are not very good at waiting. Yet today’s readings are entirely about waiting—Jesus tells us about ten young women waiting in the night for a bridegroom. Unlike Beckett’s Godot, however, the Bridegroom does come. The question of the Gospel is not whether he will come, but what happens to us while we wait.

The ten bridesmaids initially look almost identical. All ten have lamps. All ten are invited. All ten are waiting for the same bridegroom. Interestingly, “they all became drowsy and slept” (Mt 25:5). Jesus does not condemn them for sleeping. The wise ones also slept. The difference is wonderfully ordinary: five brought extra oil and five did not. The wise were prepared for a delay. That is very close to the first reading, where Wisdom is described as actually coming to meet the person who seeks her: “One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate” (Wis 6:14). Biblical wisdom means learning how to live today in the light of what ultimately matters. Noah built the ark before the rain began (Gen 6:13–22). Joseph stored grain during seven plentiful years before the famine arrived (Gen 41:33–36, 47–49). The Israelites ate the Passover meal ready to depart, with sandals on their feet and staff in hand (Ex 12:11). In each story, faith was not panic about tomorrow; it was faithful preparation today.

That makes the oil in Jesus’ parable particularly interesting. The foolish bridesmaids discover something uncomfortable: there are certain things another person cannot simply hand over at midnight. Someone can lend us money, an umbrella, a phone charger and perhaps even a sermon, but nobody can lend us a lifetime of trust in God at the last minute. Character cannot be downloaded like an app. The prophet Samuel discovered this when God told him not to judge merely by appearance, because “the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). The lamp is what people see; the oil is what keeps the lamp alive when nobody is watching. Prayer quietly learned, kindness repeatedly practised, forgiveness slowly cultivated, faith tested through disappointment—these become the hidden oil of a human life. The Psalmist therefore says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105). Notice that it is a lamp for the path, not a floodlight revealing the next twenty years. Often God gives enough light for the next step.

This becomes especially important when suffering enters life. St. Josephine Bakhita knew a darkness far more severe than the darkness surrounding the bridesmaids. Kidnapped as a child in Sudan, sold repeatedly into slavery and subjected to terrible cruelty, she eventually gained her freedom and became a Canossian Sister in Italy. What is striking about Bakhita is that suffering did not have the final word in shaping her heart. She came to understand that beyond the masters who had controlled her life there was another Master—the God who loved rather than possessed her. Her wounds remained part of her history, but bitterness did not become her identity. She illustrates Paul’s remarkable words today: Christians certainly grieve, but not “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thes 4:13). Paul does not say, “Do not grieve.” Christianity does not ask people to smile at funerals and pretend that death does not hurt. Jesus himself wept at the grave of Lazarus (Jn 11:35). Christian hope means that tears and hope can occupy the same heart.

Paul grounds that hope not in positive thinking but in Christ: “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died” (1 Thes 4:14). Job, centuries earlier and in the middle of terrible loss, reached toward the same hope when he declared, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25). Abraham also learned to wait when the promise of a son seemed humanly impossible (Gen 15:1–6; 21:1–3). Simeon waited into old age for “the consolation of Israel” and finally held the child Jesus in his arms (Lk 2:25–32). Biblical waiting, therefore, is never simply killing time. It is allowing God to work during the interval between promise and fulfilment. We often imagine that nothing is happening because nothing visible is happening. A seed under the soil might make the same complaint.

A striking modern example comes from an ordinary family in the UAE. In 1991, Munira Abdulla suffered a severe brain injury in a traffic accident while protecting her young son. For years she remained in a state of severely impaired consciousness. Her son, Omar Webair, continued caring for her and hoping, despite being repeatedly told that meaningful recovery was unlikely. More than a quarter of a century later, during treatment in Germany, she regained consciousness and one of the first things she uttered was her son’s name. Her story received international attention because Omar’s years of care were extraordinary in their persistence. Not every long illness ends with such a dramatic awakening. The deeper lesson is in the son’s long fidelity when he could not control the outcome. Much of life is exactly that: caring for someone, keeping a promise, doing one’s duty, praying through uncertainty, or simply getting up tomorrow and loving again when today produced no miracle.

Perhaps this is why Jesus ends the parable with the words, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Mt 25:13). “Keep awake” cannot literally mean never sleep—the five wise bridesmaids slept too. It means keeping the heart awake. Elijah discovered how easily exhaustion can overcome even a prophet. After his great victory on Mount Carmel, he collapsed beneath a broom tree and wanted to die. God’s first response was surprisingly practical: an angel gave him food and allowed him to sleep (1 Kgs 19:4–8). Sometimes holy wisdom is not doing something spectacular; sometimes it is eating, resting, getting up and continuing the journey. God knows that we are human.

And perhaps that is the good news hidden inside the warning of today’s Gospel. The Bridegroom may seem delayed, but he has not forgotten the wedding. Wisdom says that God can be found by those who seek him. Paul says that death does not have the last word. Jesus says that the Bridegroom is coming. Our task is not to predict the hour, become frightened about the future, or spend life staring anxiously down the road. It is simply to keep a little oil in the lamp: a little faith when life becomes dark, a little kindness when people become difficult, a little hope when answers are delayed, and enough love to remain faithful to the people entrusted to us.

The simplest message of these readings is: A life prepared for God is not necessarily a spectacular life. Very often it is an ordinary life in which, through long nights and unexpected delays, someone quietly keeps the light on.

Satish Selvarance