The Wisdom of Placing all Our Eggs in God’s Basket
32ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)
Wisdom 6:12-16; I Thess 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
Last week while accompanying a group of college
students in a Recollection, a young man sought to know from me how God reveals
himself to us. I had said then, and I should mention here again that in
everything we see; everything we experience, and in all that adds up to our
daily existence, there lies hidden a statement of God’s manifestation. For God
is constantly talking to us; constantly pronouncing in every death the vanity
of a life lived apart from him (John 15:5); in every wedding his perfect desire
for communion with us; in every birth, the hope of his uninterrupted love for
his creation… The list is endless. But we might never understand because we
lack the needed spiritual wisdom to grasp the language of God in his creation.
Pure human wisdom suggests that it would be foolhardy of anyone to ‘put all eggs in one basket’. In business wisdom, the need to spread risks is sorted out by diversification. Today’s gospel excerpt presents to us two groups of virgins; the first group is of five girls who are wise in the eyes of the world, but appallingly foolish in the wisdom of God. The other five girls are wise in the eyes of God and yet desperately foolish by worldly standards. How could they spend all the money they had on oil? Suppose the Bride groom failed to turn up? Apart from the cash, which they apparently had generously, the wise girls had the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity as well. They knew that a project of meeting the bridegroom was too serious to spare anything for. With Jesus, the bride groom, what could one lack? And so they freely spent all the money they had on oil.
Pure human wisdom suggests that it would be foolhardy of anyone to ‘put all eggs in one basket’. In business wisdom, the need to spread risks is sorted out by diversification. Today’s gospel excerpt presents to us two groups of virgins; the first group is of five girls who are wise in the eyes of the world, but appallingly foolish in the wisdom of God. The other five girls are wise in the eyes of God and yet desperately foolish by worldly standards. How could they spend all the money they had on oil? Suppose the Bride groom failed to turn up? Apart from the cash, which they apparently had generously, the wise girls had the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity as well. They knew that a project of meeting the bridegroom was too serious to spare anything for. With Jesus, the bride groom, what could one lack? And so they freely spent all the money they had on oil.
The worldly ‘wise’ girls chose to keep some cash, just in case the bridegroom failed to show up. How could they put all their eggs in the bridegroom’s basket? We are no different from them when we ration our gifts, time, money, expertise…everything for God. They for a moment failed to remember that everything they could ever have was a gift from God. We are no different from this bunch of girls Jesus calls foolish when our work comes first within the furniture of our minds; when we cannot spare a moment for the Rosary or to dash for a morning mass, or even to visit a sick person. We are no different.
Wisdom is personified in the first reading as an elusive lady who is ‘…readily perceived by those who love her and found by those who seek her’ (Wisdom 6:12). She even ‘…makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of her (V.16). Not many are worthy though, and therefore lack Lady Wisdom which is a gift from God (Wis 8:1-21).
This is why we cannot read the signs of the time. We cannot hear God’s voice from the cacophony of the world’s noises. We cannot see God’s clear writings on the wall of nature; writings written in red flames of conflict, in the heat of the global warming, in the anguished faces of the terminally ill and the muffled moans of the oppressed. We must learn to see his exhortations in the snow-white innocent eyes of the little children and in the melodious tunes of the chirping birds. He even talks in our upsets, in our anxieties, fears, hopes, aspirations, dreams, failures and little successes. But do we understand? How can we when we have stopped praying? We are no different from the five foolish girls who could not place all their eggs in God’s basket.
Spiritual wisdom confers on each one of us unstinting Hope in the Lord’s return (1 Thess 4:13-18). Like the five wise virgins, we must not hesitate to employ all that we have – and indeed, all that we are – in the service of the Lord. ‘We shall always be with the Lord,’ St Paul encourages the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4:17). The hope of the Resurrection and the Parousia (the second coming of the Lord in Glory) remain key pillars in our creed. But this hope is yet to be translated into our concrete lives. We should readily and joyfully place all our eggs in God’s basket. Only then shall we be able to step out of our dark caves of fear into the light of the gospel with smiling faces and singing hearts.
WE THEREFORE PRAY FOR SPIRITUAL WISDOM TO SEE GOD MORE CLEARLY; TO LOVE HIM MORE DEARLY AND TO FOLLOW HIM MORE NEARLY. WE SHOULD WAIT FOR HIS SECOND COMING IN JOYFUL HOPE! WE PRAY TOO THAT WE MAY NOT PREPARE FOR THE WEDDING FEAST HALFHEARTEDLY. LET US SPARE NOTHING!
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