We know neither the day nor the hour

My friends in Christ,

As we go through these last few weeks of ordinary time and the end of the liturgical year our readings point us towards the 4 last things, that is judgement, heaven, hell, and purgatory. They highlight for us the afterlife, which could be spent either in indescribable joy in the presence of the God in heaven, or in indescribable misery in hell. I think this is a fitting time for such reflection after the great feasts of All Saints and All Souls.

In the Gospel this morning, we hear of the importance of preparation and watchfulness. We hear how the maidens that did not prepare by having oil for their lamps, missed their opportunity to attend the wedding feast. What Jesus is referring to here is the Jewish marital customs of the time. After the betrothal the groom would lead a procession with his wife to their new home. This would be followed by a week-long banquet. In the parable today, the foolish maidens are not prepared and miss the groom when he comes by, and thus are locked out from the celebration, while the wise maidens who were prepared get to enjoy the lavish feast. What Christ is teaching us is that we need to apply the message of this parable to our spiritual lives. We must be spiritually prepared for when it is our time to stand before the Lord in judgement, for we know neither the day nor the hour. 

We need to keep our lamp burning. We achieve this by doing good works, prayer, fasting, and the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. We do this by attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist. We do this by nourishing our souls with the word of God. We must guard against becoming lax and complacent in our spiritual lives, for as CS Lewis said: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” If we start letting things go here and there. Skip Mass one Sunday, put off confession, skip grace before meals, stop praying the rosary, things will begin to snowball out of control. We need to remember that God loves us, and we do these things out of love and devotion to him.

We may recall that God made us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him in the next. We were made for God and to spend eternity with Him in heaven. However, out of love for us, God gave us free will. So we are free to choose to go against what God created us to do. This is sin. If we persist in mortal sin, we will not be able to enter heaven when we die. We will be choosing not to spend eternity with God. Lucky for us, we have the sacrament of confession. God gave this wonderful sacrament to the Church out of his great love and mercy for us. So whenever we sin, we can repent and be forgiven by going to confession. This restores our relationship with him. 

Since we do not know the day nor the hour when we will be called to meet the Lord, we need to make confession a regular part of our lives. It is not something we only do when we are in school and are brought to the priest by our teacher. It is an essential part of being a faithful practicing Catholic. If you are worried because it has been a long time since you have gone, fear not. The priest will be overjoyed that you have returned. I go to confession at least once a month. I would suggest for all of us, that we make the effort to go at least every other month. We are all in need of God’s grace and mercy. The great Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said: “Each and every one of us, at the end of the journey of life, will come face to face with either one or the other of two faces… And one of them, either the merciful face of Christ or the miserable face of Satan, will say, “Mine, mine.” May we be Christ’s!”