Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Reflecting on Matthew 25: 1-13
Does it ever work to just avoid knowing stuff? A friend of mine, a history professor, wonders if future generations will look at the abortion procedures of this country in our lifetimes and say to us, “And you KNEW?” Certainly the generation has already been born that looks at the devastations of climate change and says, “And you KNEW? You had all those decades of warning, and THIS is what you’re leaving us?”
We can see it in our own aging relatives, or maybe ourselves. I’m thinking of the ones who would never deny themselves that cigarette, that alcohol, that all-you-can-eat buffet. We knew. Of course we knew. We’ve known since the early 1960s the devastations on the body that come from a lifetime of immediate gratification. Yet, like those foolish virgins, we couldn’t let ourselves imagine the day when we would need to have been extra vigilant in the past in order to greet the Bridegroom tonight.
We thought we had more time. We thought our lungs and our livers and our waistlines would somehow heal themselves. We thought that “all those smart kids” would come up with ways to heal our rivers and glaciers and wildlife. Maybe one of those smart kids never saw the light of day.
Certainly the most urgent warning is this: get to know Jesus Christ. Pick up the last few chapters of Matthew’s gospel, before Advent comes and we don’t come back to it for three years.
If we don’t exercise today we won’t have the flexibility to heal from the inevitable ravages of aging. If we don’t work on intimacy with Jesus today, how will we recognize him when he comes for us tomorrow?
What (or Who) are you avoiding knowing?
Kathy McGovern ©2020