Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time A.   November 6, 2005.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 11:30, 6PM.  Wisdom 6:12-16.  I Thessalonians 4:13-18.  Matthew 25: 1-13.

Let me draw a mental picture of New Orleans for you.  If you took an empty cereal bowl and placed it right side up in a tub, and then filled the tub with water to the brim of the cereal bowl, you would have a good picture of the very dangerous position that New Orleans is in.   Like the bottom of the cereal bowl, the city of the New Orleans is built below the level of the water surrounding it.  Any slashing around of the water in the Gulf of Mexico or in Lake Pontchartrain would send water over the brim of the dikes flooding the city.  Any child with a cereal bowl and a tub of water could figure out the great disaster that was waiting to happen in New Orleans.    Intelligent people did figure this perilous situation out.  Since 1970 lawmakers in Louisiana have sought federal funding to upgrade the dikes and levees around New Orleans.  Last year the Army corps of Engineers asked Congress for 105 million dollars for hurricane and flood programs for New Orleans.  They received less than half that amount.  It will now cost billions of federal and other dollars to clean up the mess in New Orleans.  Over and above this are the loss of human life and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people.   

Intelligence is the gift that God gives us to figure out and understand the world in which we live.  Wisdom is the gift that God gives us to do what needs to be done. It is all too possible to be very intelligent, knowing and understanding the situation of our lives very well, yet not being wise enough to do what needs to be done.  Intelligence is about what we know.  Wisdom is about how we use what we know. 

“Jesus said, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.  Five were foolish and five were wise.”  (Even though they all knew that the bridegroom might be delayed in coming) the five foolish virgins brought no extra oil for their lamps.  When the bridegroom finally arrived at midnight, the foolish virgins said to the wise, ‘give us some of your oil, our lamps are burning out.’ The wise virgins refused telling them that they should hurry to the store to buy some more oil – something they should have been wise enough to do in the first place.  Foolish people are always playing catch up; with their actions always running far behind what their minds tell them is true.  While the foolish virgins are out buying oil, the bridegroom comes to the wedding feast; the foolish virgins arrive late and they are locked out of the feast.   

Jesus reminds us that it is not enough to know and understand what is right and good.  It is not enough for our conscience to tell us what is right and good.  Wisdom demands that we do now what our mind and our conscience tells us is right, or we may find ourselves locked outside – condemned not only by God, but by our own intelligence and our conscience that had in fact warned us about what we should do.     Like the foolish virgins we may count on the fact that someone else will save us at the last minute by sharing with us some of their oil.  We may believe that the door will always remain unlocked for us.  Today Jesus reminds us that both of these presuppositions may be foolish hopes that give false comfort to those who lack wisdom.  Wise people provide for themselves and for those they love by wise and prudent action based on what they know and understand.

The world as we know it is passing away.  The end of the world and the second coming of Christ is a truth of faith that we all accept.  Are we wise enough to use what we believe and understand with our minds to guide the choices we make in our lives?

Today St. Paul tells us, “The Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  Thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

Those who are truly wise ask themselves a very ancient and important question at every turn and bend in their lives.  What does all of this mean in the light of eternity?  What do the events in my life, the joys and the sorrows, mean when I remember that I was made for heaven and that life in this world is a preview, a preparation and a testing ground  for the fullness of life that will come when the Lord Jesus comes again in glory and the dead rise from their graves?

We are all tempted by the society in which we live to make choices based on beauty, popularity and success in this world only.  But we all know that no matter how hard we work to hide the wrinkles or how careful we are to maintain our health, in the end life in this world will end for all of us, and the life of heaven is the only reality that matters over the long haul.  Today Jesus asks us if we are wise enough to makes choices based on the truths we know with our minds.  The foolish take chances.  The wise put what they know into action.  For the gift of wisdom to live our faith well we give God thanks and praise.