OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016

12/11/2017 – 32nd Sunday of O.T. – Year A

12/11/2017 – 32^nd Sunday of O.T. – Year A

Thanksgiving Sunday

Reading 1, Wisdom 6,12-16 Psalm 62 Reading 2, First Thessalonians 4,13-18 Gospel, Matthew 25,1-13

“My heart thirsts for you”, “I will bless you all my life”! With these words from the Psalm we answer the news contained in the first reading, telling us about wisdom like it was a person whom we fervently desired to live with. My soul, that is to say “I” from deep down in my heart, is thirsty, I have a true desire of enjoying the authentic wisdom. The Wisdom is that of God, and we easily can identify it with His Spirit or His Word, the eternal Word that comes to meet us, even more, that comes in search for us: indeed, we are precious in its eyes!

“Whoever gets up early to seek her will have no trouble”: this is why our thoughts and our desires are focused on Wisdom. In our heart, the desires of material things, towards our physical wellbeing, will not be important: we would be at the mercy of what our senses seek, or our ambitions, and therefore of other men’s approval or criticisms, just as short-lived. In keeping the wisdom near, thinking about it, desiring it, seeking it, we deep down mature a new power, the freedom from everything and everyone, an enviable serenity. Whoever earnestly seeks Wisdom will find himself immersed in God’s heart, from which it comes!

Reflecting on and the desire of Wisdom prepare us to listen to Jesus’ parable. In this, He compares two different groups of people. These are two small groups of girls “wedding attendants”, five and five of them, one different from the other in regarding of their behavior.

The first five are defined as “foolish”: they have not wisdom enough! Their foolishness is about not doing anything to be prepared to face what is coming. The event they are waiting for is the coming of the bridegroom that they will accompany when he will celebrate his wedding. They know that he is going to come, but do not do anything to be prepared for his coming! This means that they do not have any love for him, they are not living in the expectation of his arrival and of his wedding; they are still paying attention to their own businesses, immersed in their shallowness, kept behind by their comfort. The others are “sensible”: before letting themselves slipping into sleep, a very normal tendency at night, differently from the first group, they provide for everything and, in addition to their lamps, they prepare the oil they will need if the waiting lasts longer than expected. None of them, as a matter of fact, knows when the bridegroom is due to come. When resounds the cry that announces his arrival, right at midnight, the latter are ready. They are ready to accompany, with the light of their lamps, the steps of whom is going to give his life to the bride with whom he is celebrating his wedding! The foolish ones instead have still to go to buy the oil and, even worse, in a moment in which it is not really easy to find! And nobody can spare them this labor!

We can understand what Jesus wants to tell us. Many times, with other parables too, he insisted in saying that we need to be ready! What kind of readiness is this? Evidently is ready whoever welcomes Him, the Savior, sent be God, whom the Father is proud of! Whoever welcomes Him and obeys His word, and embraces His Spirit, this very one will be ready in every moment to accompany Him! Let us not wait: let us take right now all the possible steps in order to become «His», His disciple, His imitator, His friend! Do not wait to convert! Do not wait: He could need to make use of you right now, He could ask for your availability in no time. If in you the love for Him is not true, if you have still to decide if you want to give yourself to Him, the right moment will pass and you will remain in your darkness, in your solitude, and in you will grow a feeling of inanity and desperation! Nobody can answer in your place. You can ask other people to pray for you: but if you do not decide to belong to Jesus, what on earth will somebody else’s prayer be for, even many others’?

In the second reading Saint Paul spares a word about the death of the believers. We commemorated our dead not long ago, knowing exactly what the apostle is saying today. Since Jesus has risen from the dead, the resurrection has become our hope. He will gather us to be forever with Him, and we will be part of the assembly that will praise God for all eternity! This revelation allows us to be serene and happy when we think about our death or when somebody of us dies: they have not disappeared or fallen into nothingness, but they are living with the Lord, and he is awaiting us to join Him in the same eternal and glorious life!

This certainty is the foundation of that wisdom that makes us clever in every moment of our life! Whoever also knows how beautiful is the goal then, goes to any length in order not to lose the way! Jesus is the goal and the way: I want to love Him right now, right now I want to listen to Him. I will be rich in wisdom, rich in His Word, when he will come again!

Traditionally, in this Sunday we thank the Father for all the benefits, material ones also, that He gave us. We say thanks for the fruits of the earth and His blessing on our work, with which we could provide for ourselves and also we could think of helping somebody else. Thanksgiving is always appreciated by God: it makes us humble and opens our heart to be charitable. Let us say our thank you with all our heart!