Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Matthew (25: 1-13) in which Jesus tells the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids.

Fr Paul says the principal moment of a wedding in the time of Jesus was when the groom went to pick up the bride from her father’s house and take her to his own house. The torches should be pictured as oil-soaked rags, flaming on the end of a stick, and they were used to help him move from one house to the other.

In a typical black-and-white Matthean parable the point is not that all the bridesmaids went to sleep, but that only some had brought oil with which to soak the rags. In Matthew this would be a stock of good works (like the wedding-garment in 22.12). The point is no longer about alertness, which yesterday’s gospel was about, but about being prepared. It is not that the silly girls did not have enough oil; they simply did not have any; no wonder the rags kept going out! Without oil the rags wouldn’t even light properly!

The story is a single-point parable on the need to prepare ourselves for when we move from this earthly house and are joined with God in our heavenly home.

For our reflection today, Fr Paul invites us to consider this question, ‘How prepared am I?’.