2017November 12,SUN32ORDA

BSP SORSOGON ,PHILIPPINES

2017November 12,SUN32ORDA

WIS 6:12-16

Responsorial Psalm PS 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 R. (2b) My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.

1 THES 4:13-18

MT 25:1-13

Good….

Today we celebrate the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A and the theme of the Readings today is to be always ready for God.

In the Scouting Community we usually hear: “Be always prepared” “ Be always Ready” and to those who are Scouts this motto is both the Goal and the Way. The Scouting Way is the Way to be always prepared. The Scout Training helps the Scouts to develop themselves to be always prepared for any eventualities of life.

Just like the Motto of the Scouting Movement, the Kingdom of Heaven is also our goal in this life and at the same time the Kingdom of Heaven is our Way of life. This is why Jesus teaches us that the “Kingdom of Heaven is here and not yet”. It is both the Goal and the Way to the Goal.

When we look to the parable of the Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel today, it is likened to the Ten Virgins. The Gospel says: “Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.”

Here it is clearly stated that the Kingdom of Heaven will be likened to the Ten Virgins. But in our usual interpretation, we think that it is only the 5 wise virgins who took their lamps along with their oil. But the Gospel includes also the 5 foolish virgins into the Kingdom of Heaven but these 5 foolish virgins need to understand and grow better to be always prepared in their lives.

These parable of the Ten Virgins as likened to the Kingdom of God is the story of each one of us in our lives here on earth. We live our lives not always in the best possible way but there are times that we are in our worst. I believe that no one of us can say that we live always as good person as we can be. ( and If there is any, we can put him/her on a pedestal as our Saint.) We all know that we are both saints and sinners. There is always the struggle between these two forces in our lives. There is one Native American Story about the two wolves that always quarrel inside of us and the one who wins is the one that we feed. This is our lives as human beings. It is always an struggle for the better or for the worse, and it only depends on us on which one we choose to become: to be a better person or bad.

The First Reading from the Book of Wisdom offer us some help to choose the best in us. Wisdom is not something hard and foreign to us since it part of our being and that God’s Wisdom is readily found for it seeks its seeker. We can always find wisdom for wisdom seeks us also and all we have to do is to be open for it in our lives. Wisdom makes us a better person in view of the design of God for us as his own image and likeness.

For example: almost every day we pray as we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Wisdom tells us that we have to do what we pray for to make it ( the kingdom of God ) a reality in our lives, but we also know that in every day of our lives, we fail to do the Will of God because we want to do our own plans and desires. But we donot usually get our plans and desires And in failing to get or achieve our plans and desires, we become depressed , with depression we attract all kinds of evil in us and usually with this emotional pain comes physical pains and as a result we take pain medications and now this is one of the addiction that we have, addictions to Opioid and other drugs.

And so as Christians, we have to learn to put our trust in God for everything comes from Him and when we choose God in our lives, we will have everything that we can dream and desires. This is the better choice for us, this is the life that is always prepared. AMEN.