GOSPEL REFLECTION, FRIDAY, 21ST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, 28 AUGUST 2026, ST AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

Matthew 25:1-13.  Today’s gospel reading is yet another of Jesus’ Parables of the Kingdom.  Like all his parables, this one is rich with meanings and echoes so that we find its significance casting several rays of light, almost like a kaleidoscope.  This is especially true of the parable before us.  It tells of ten bridesmaids gathered at the house of a bride, waiting for the bridegroom to appear.  They all have lamps to welcome him, but he is delayed in coming, so they all fall asleep.  Suddenly there is a cry that the bridegroom is coming, and they all awake.  However, five of the bridesmaids have not brought sufficient oil for their lamps and scuttle about trying to find some.  They went out to buy some.  They were unprepared.  In the meantime, the other five are fully prepared and welcome the bridegroom.  The door is then locked.  When the five who went out to buy oil find themselves excluded from the festivities.  They knocked at the door, but the bridegroom says, “I do not know you!  Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  There lies the core meaning of this Kingdom Parable.

In the Old Testament, the bridegroom in this parable would have been God the Father; in the gospel he is Christ himself come to unite with his people in a wedding festival, which is a powerful image of the Kingdom.  We know neither the day nor the hour when the Lord will come to join his bride, the Church, so we must constantly be prepared and fully awake spiritually to recognise and participate in that union.  It is possible to be ‘inside the Church’ in some sense,  we may suppose but still be less than fully prepared for the Kingdom and the Bridegroom when he arrives for that great wedding festival.  Be spiritually prepared  and be fully spiritually awake!  The Lord is speaking to us!

St Augustine said in his Sermon 93: “watch with the heart, watch with charity, watch with good works … make ready the lamps, make sure they do not go out … renew them with the inner oil of an upright conscience; then shall the Bridegroom enfold you in the embrace of his love and bring you into his banquet room, where you lamp can never be extinguished.”  That is the Kingdom of God.