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Recently I have attended a Requiem Mass for a woman who died of a cancer. She gave most of her life to educating children in Catholic schools. Among symbols placed on her coffin was a picture of her favourite prayer, Prayer of St Francis: Make me a channel of your peace… The deceased was known for praying it a lot. She was also known for striving to live out this prayer, for putting it into practice. Delivering Words of Remembrance her daughter used a verse from the prayer to summarise the life of her mother: In giving we receive.
At this time of the year, when days becoming longer and warmer evoke in us an excitement of upcoming summer holidays, Christ Jesus stands in our midst to evoke in us an excitement of his return at the end of time. What is exciting about Jesus’ return? Our Blessed Lord gives us an inspiring and action prompting memory of the ten bridesmaids going to meet the bridegroom. This memory is different to our summer holidays memories because it is not our memory, it is Christ’s memory. It is not what we remember it is what he remembers. He opens his mind and heart to us, so that our minds and hearts could be filled with this memory of his return at the end of time.
Ten bridesmaids went to meet the bridegroom carrying their olive lamps. They are all women because they portray the Church which has a female identity in the Scriptures. They all have lit lamps like all of us in the Church have the transforming gift of our common Baptism, symbolised by our baptismal candles. There are ten of them because the Church is a community which goes together to meet her bridegroom, Jesus Christ. However the Church is not a crowd that carries people along even if they don’t want to. The Church is a community where people preserve and exercise their own responsibility. Our Blessed Lord put it in this way: ‘Five of them were foolish ones and five were sensible.’ The foolish ones were like the man from the parable about the talents, the man who kept what he was given but didn’t multiply it. The sensible bridesmaids brought some extra oil they got to keep the flame of their lamps going. The parable doesn’t tell us how they got the extra oil, this divine love, that sustains the flame of faith, so let us turn to another part of the Bible, to the Gospel of Luke where Jesus said: ‘Give, and you will receive.’ That’s what St Francis treasured: ‘In giving we receive.’ It is not giving something. It is giving yourself following the example of Jesus who gave himself for us and for our salvation.
Let us make this memory Jesus has given us today ours. Let us also pray with the Psalmist: ‘O God, you are my God, for you I long, for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water.’ A dry land waits for water to become alive and fruitful for birds and animals, and for people as well. I pray so that all of us can be generous in giving of who we are to God and others, even before we give what we have. Then when, with our fellow believers, we stand before our heavenly Lord Jesus Christ, he may look at us and say: ‘The life you have lived can be summarised in these words: ‘In giving we receive.’ Enter to the Kingdom of my and your Father.
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