If there is one thing that gives most people a sinking feeling, it is when we arrive somewhere and find that we are unprepared. This was likely doubly true for the virgins in our Gospel today, since not only did they have to scramble to try to find the oil that they lacked for their lamps, but on top of that, they were shut out from the wedding celebration because they were late arriving back. They found themselves shut out of what they had been looking forward to because of their own lack of preparation.
Very often in scripture, a wedding celebration or marriage in an of itself are used to describe the joy of establishing an intimate relationship, or to convey a sense of deep intimacy itself. The metaphor is excellent in both cases because what we seek with our Lord, and what He seeks with us, is the same level of joy and intimacy that is found in the context of marriage. How tragic then it would be for us to experience the same sorrow and despair of being shut out from that kind of experience the way the virgins in the Gospel narrative were. The last thing we want to do is find the door locked, and to hear from our Lord, that He does not know us.
The key to building any relationship is time spent, and experiences shared. It is no different in building and maintaining a relationship with God. We do this by spending time, and by talking to him. When we attend Mass, we worship and communicate together, and we receive Him through the Eucharist which is a deeply intimate and reverent Sacramental bonding. When we spend time in prayer by ourselves, with only our Lord present with us, we have the opportunity to share everything that is going on in our lives without the need to hold anything back. This does not need to be anything formal in terms of prayer. There is a time and place for formal recitation of the prayers we know so well, but there is also a time for simply having a conversation like we would with anyone who is truly close to us and knows us. There is nothing off limits in what we can share because our Lord knows our minds and hearts. We can truly tell Him about anything that is going on in our lives. He wants to hear all this from us, just as any parent wants to hear what their children are up to. It doesn’t matter if they know the circumstance already, it is still good to hear it from us as a way of sharing and connecting. This is what our Lord longs for from each of us, and this is how He will truly know us when the day and hour arrives when we will knock at the door.
The Deacons Bench 