Go forth in boldness The 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

                                                      Go forth in boldness

The 32^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

November 12, 2023

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Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

 

 

It is easy to look at this parable of the ten virgins going out to meet the bridegroom in the usual way. We are to imitate the wise ones who acted prudently and not be like the foolish ones who did not prepare themselves in advance despite knowing what was at stake. They were left standing at the door and the bridegroom did not acknowledge even knowing them. They not only missed the moment, but they were also wounded by a harsh rejection and casting off by the groom. Many can feel sympathy for those who were left behind; Shouldn’t a Christian try to be in solidarity with their fate?

 

The parable shows us that the women failed to recognize their hour. Jesus tried to get Israel to recognize the crucial hour of God’s action, but most of the people did not read the signs of the times. The moment Jesus brought about was not grasped because it would have demanded the wisdom, we heard about in the first reading. That would have brough about a high degree of readiness from a people highly attentive to the silent, mysterious workings of God. This parable shows that the door would be closed as it was with the five foolish virgins and would not open again so quickly.

 

This parable is not about morality or the relationship of the five wise women to the five foolish ones. This parable is about seizing the moment and following Jesus. Those who are called to follow him cannot remain behind for the sake of others who do not want to go with them. They must continue to go out – forward – so that the new ingathering of people under the reign of God may come to pass in the world. Their work is to call people anew to discipleship. They are the people, part of the church, in whom Jesus can be seen and rightly listened to authentically. They are the ones whose readiness makes the reign of God clear and distinct.

 

We are no longer in biblical times when Jesus was asking people to accept his vision of God’s reign, but he is still with us and calling us to readiness, a willingness to accept the newness of this vision in today’s world. He is calling us to use our wisdom, to learn God’s wisdom, to read the signs of the times and to be creative and bold to call people anew to discipleships. We need creative solutions for new problems because the former ways cannot adequately respond to today’s challenges. We cannot be live the five who stayed behind; we have to be those who are ready to go out and meet today’s challenges with courage and energy and a creativity that is liberated from our past.

 

The Church is calling us to a global self-reflection, not as individuals with our personal preferences, but collectively as believers in Jesus. Some want to stay behind; a growing number of people are ready and willing to move forward with this new understanding of mission. They are going out to encounter Jesus in new places, in new ways, in new opportunities, and finding a life-sustaining, life-restoring encounter with the Lord. The author of Wisdom tells us that whoever seeks her, whoever watches for her will not be disappointed, whoever keeps vigil for wisdom’s sake, will be free from care. This is our time to move forward with excitement and anticipation, to be liberated from our worries, so we may authentically encounter Jesus and experience him collectively in new ways. It is with this enthusiasm that we can still go out into the new frontiers and still find more, still find the divine fire that kindles other fires, still find a world hungering for the love and mercy that only God can give, and still find a community ready to accept them in friendship and welcome. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (Wisdom 1) Love justice, you who judge the earth; think of the Lord in goodness and seek him in integrity of heart; Because he is found by those who test him not, and he manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve him.

 

Tuesday: (Wisdom 2) God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made them. But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it.

 

Wednesday: (Wisdom 6) Because, though you were ministers of his kingdom, you judged not rightly, and did not keep the law, nor walk according to the will of God,
Terribly and swiftly shall he come against you, because judgment is stern for the exalted.

 

Thursday: (Wisdom 7) In Wisdom is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, And pervading all spirits, though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle.

 

Friday (Wisdom 13) All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan.

 

Saturday (Wisdom 18) When peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, your all-powerful word, from heaven’s royal throne
bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land, bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 17) Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

 

Tuesday: (Luke 17) Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here immediately and take your place at table'? Would he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat.

 

Wednesday (Luke 17) As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests."

 

Thursday (Luke 17) Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply, "The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or, 'There it is.' For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you."

 

Friday (Luke 17) As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

 

Saturday (Luke 18) Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. 

 

Saints of the Week

 

November 12: Josaphat, bishop and martyr (1580-1623) was a Ukranian who entered the Basilian order and was ordained in the Byzantine rite. He was named the archbishop of Polotsk, Russia and attempted to unite the Ukrainian church with Rome. His opponents killed him. He is the first Eastern saint to be formally canonized.

 

November 13: Francis Xavier Cabrini, religious (1850-1917) was an Italian-born daughter to a Lombardy family of 13 children. She wanted to become a nun, but needed to stay at her parents’ farm because of their poor health. A priest asked her to help work in a girls’ school and she stayed for six years before the bishop asked her to care for girls in poor schools and hospitals. With six sisters, she came to the U.S. in 1889 to work among Italian immigrants. She was the first American citizen to be canonized.   

 

November 13: Stanislaus Kostka, S.J., religious (1550-1568) was a Polish novice who walked from his home to Rome to enter the Jesuits on his 17^th birthday. He feared reprisals by his father against the Society in Poland so we went to directly see the Superior General in person. Francis Borgia admitted him after Peter Canisius had him take a month in school before applying for entrance. Because of his early death, Kostka is revered as the patron saint of Jesuit novices. 

 

November 14: Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Superior General (1917-1991) was the 28^th Superior General of the Jesuits. He was born in the Basque region of the Iberian Peninsula. He is considered one of the great reformers of the Society because he was asked by the Pope to carry out the reforms of Vatican II. November 14^th is the commemoration of his birth.

 

November 14: Joseph Pignatelli, S.J., religious and Superior General (1737-1811) was born in Zaragosa, Spain and entered the Jesuits during a turbulent era. He was known as the unofficial leader of the Jesuits in Sardinia when the Order was suppressed and placed in exile. He worked with European leaders to continue an underground existence and he was appointed Novice Master under Catherine the Great, who allowed the Society to receive new recruits. He secured the restoration of the Society partly in 1803 and fully in 1811 and bridged a link between the two eras of the Society. He oversaw a temperate reform of the Order that assured their survival.

 

November 15: Albert the Great, bishop and doctor (1200-1280), joined the Dominicans to teach theology in Germany and Paris. Thomas Aquinas was his student. With his reluctance, he was made bishop of Ratisbon. He resigned after four years so he could teach again. His intellectual pursuits included philosophy, natural science, theology, and Arabic language and culture. He applied Aristotle's philosophy to theology.

 

November 16: Roch Gonzalez, John del Castillo, and Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1576-1628) were Jesuit priests born to Paraguayan nobility who were architects of the Paraguayan reductions, societies of immigrants based on religious faith. They taught the indigenous population how to plant farms and other basic life skills that would protect them from the insidious slave trades of Spain and Portugal. By the time the Jesuits were expelled, 57 such settlements were established. Roch was a staunch opponent of the slave trade. He, John, and Alphonsus were killed when the envy of a local witch doctor lost his authority at the expense of their growing medical expertise.  

 

November 16: Margaret of Scotland (1046-1093) was raised in Hungary because the Danes invaded England. She returned after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and sought refuge in Scotland. She married the king and bore him eight children. She corrected many wayward abuses within the church and clarified church practices. 

 

November 16: Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) was placed for childrearing into a Benedictine monastery at age 5 in Saxony. She lived with two mystics named Mechthild and as she developed her intellectual and spiritual gifts, she too became a mystic. Her spiritual instructions are collected into five volumes. She wrote prayers as a first advocate of the Sacred Heart.

 

November 17: Elizabeth of Hungary, (1207-1231) was the daughter of Andrew II, king of Hungary. She married Ludwig IV of Thuringia and as queen supported many charities. When her husband died in a crusade in 1227, she entered the Third Order of Franciscans. 

 

November 18: The Dedication of the Basilicas of Peter and Paul celebrates churches in honor of the two great church founders. St. Peter's basilica was begun in 323 by Emperor Constantine - directly over Peter's tomb. A new basilica was begun in 1506 and it was completed in 1626. Many great artists and architects had a hand in building it. St. Paul Outside the Walls was built in the 4th century over Paul's tomb. It was destroyed by fire in 1823 and subsequently rebuilt.

 

November 18: Rose Philippine Duchesne (1769-1852) joined the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and at age 49, traveled to Missouri to set up a missionary center and the first free school west of the Mississippi. She then founded six more missions. She worked to better the lives of the Native Americans.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• November 12, 1919. Fr. General Ledochowski issued an instruction concerning the use of typewriters. He said that they could be allowed in offices but not in personal rooms, nor should they be carried from one house to another. 
• November 13, 1865. The death of James Oliver Van de Velde, second bishop of the city of Chicago from 1848 to 1853. 
• November 14, 1854. In Spain, the community left Loyola for the Balearic Isles, in conformity with a government order. 
• November 15, 1628. The deaths of St Roch Gonzalez and Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez. They were some of the architects of the Jesuit missions in Uruguay and Paraguay. 
• November 16, 1989. In El Salvador, the murder of six Jesuits connected with the University of Central America together with two of their lay colleagues. 
• November 17, 1579. Bl Rudolph Acquaviva and two other Jesuits set out from Goa for Surat and Fattiphur, the Court of Akbar, the Great Mogul. 
• November 18, 1538. Pope Paul III caused the governor of Rome to publish the verdict proclaiming the complete innocence of Ignatius and his companions of all heresy.