Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Some people are surprised, if not outright offended, by the actions of the wise virgins. When the bridegroom is finally announced and the foolish virgins ask for oil for their lamps, the wise refuse to give them any. Instead, they tell them to go to the market and buy some for themselves.

To understand that response, we have to enter the world of the parable. The virgins, the lamps, and the oil are symbols. The oil that burns, that gives light and warmth, represents charity: authentic love.

Charity is the very source of light in the Christian life. It is God’s own love: the love with which he loves the world, the love with which he loves us. And that love is meant to burn within our hearts, making them a beacon of his light.

But we need to understand how we grow in charity. Charity is God’s gift, and it calls for a response of the will. Christian love is not merely a feeling. It is not simply affection. It is a choice, and that choice has to be lived out. It has to be practiced.

Every time we accept God’s grace, listen to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and say yes to charity, our capacity for it increases. Every time we say no, that capacity can diminish. So we must continually choose to love, continually choose to be receptive to God’s grace, so that we can receive his love more fully and share it more generously.

At a fundamental level, this is what our lives are about. This life is the time in which that capacity grows. Here we make the choices that develop charity within the soul. Here we prepare the oil for our lamps.

There is a sense in which, after death, the choice is final. That capacity no longer grows. We have either made room for charity and will forever receive the outpouring of God’s love according to our finite capacity, or we have rejected that love. The choices we make now matter for eternity.

Every moment of our lives is an opportunity to grow in charity or to turn away from it. Every cross is an opportunity to practice patience. Every hurtful word presents a choice: to let it go or to seek vengeance. We can choose to offer forgiveness before there is ever an apology.

In the great decisions that shape a life and in the smallest choices of an ordinary day, we have the opportunity to love as God loves. The sum of those choices shapes our capacity for charity: our capacity to give love and show it, and our capacity to receive it when God offers it.

The person who follows God, listens to his inspirations, and learns to love does more than become capable of giving greater love. That person becomes capable of receiving love more deeply. As we grow in conformity to Christ, our hearts grow in their capacity to receive all the love God wishes to give.

His offer is infinite. His gift is infinite. We are finite, and we receive according to our capacity. But in this life, that capacity can increase as we follow him.

That brings us back to the parable. When the foolish virgins ask for oil, they are asking for that gift of charity. But the wise cannot simply give them the capacity they have spent their lives developing. They can show them charity. They can direct them toward the works through which charity grows: “Go out into the streets. Go to the market. Do the works that will increase charity in your soul.” But they cannot make those choices for them. They cannot do the work for them.

And when the bridegroom arrives, the choices have been made. The consequences follow.

So if we want to be prepared for that moment, whether at the end of our own lives or at the end of human history, we must choose now. We must choose today, and every day, to be charitable. We must say yes to God’s grace and allow him to enlarge our capacity to love. That is how we prepare our hearts to receive the infinite gift he wills to give us all.