November 12（32st Sunday Year A November 12, 2023）
You are invited to the Wedding of Jesus Christ! In lieu of gifts bring your lamp full of oil to lighten up the party!
See you there.
Father Ken’s Message:
Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to our Cathedral English Mass. Today’s Gospel theme is about fulfilling our obligation to God. Life in 2023 fills our daily lives with little and big obligations to take care of. For those of us living in snowy Hokkaido those of us who drive now have an obligation to change our summer tires to winter tires now before the snow falls. Also, our cars like a hungry child always needs to be kept full of gas. Then to maintain communication with family, friends and work colleagues we have to daily re-charge our phones. And the most painful obligation us modern human beings is having to pay our bills for credit cards, insurance, and taxes to the government.
In today’s Gospel Jesus is gently trying to remind us of an obligation we have to him as our friend and savior, which is to attend his Wedding. By our Baptism we have already received a Wedding Invitation. So do not worry we are all on the guest list. Actually, this wedding will be held in Heaven but to explain our obligation, Jesus used the culture of weddings 2000 years ago to explain things to us.
A wedding 2000 years ago took a whole week to celebrate because traveling on foot or by horse carriages took a long time. The ceremony took place at the house of the groom. Typically, the wedding process entailed three steps. The first step was an Engagement Ceremony, when the man and woman promise in word to marry each other; it was a legal agreement, like couples in Japan do at City Hall. The second step was the man had an obligation to build a house for his bride, which might take a whole year. During this preparation year there was not contact between the engaged couple. The third step was the Wedding Ceremony. It started at night. The groom would travel from his home to the home of the bride to escort her back to his new home for the ceremony and party. 2000 years ago, without electricity oil-filled-lamps were used to light the way. This is the history of brides’ maids. In today’s story there were 10 bridesmaids. Apparently, some did not have enough oil so they missed out on attending the wedding.
The story Jesus told seems a bit harsh and unkind in a couple of ways. Most startling is that the 5 wise bridesmaids would not share their oil with the 5 unwise bridesmaids. The reason for this is because the oil is not oil! Oil was the most important natural food product for survival in ancient culture in the Middle East. Oil was used for cooking, for cleansing wounds, for filling lamps for light, and for anointing people in religious ceremonies to make them priests and kings. To get oil out of an olive it must be crushed. Do you remember in another Gospel story where Jesus said, “You are the light of the world….place your light on a bushel for all to see…and to give praise to your God in Heaven.” Our lives are a symbol of oil. By our works of love for one another we enlighten the world. The unwise bridesmaids had not shown enough love in their lives, so the bridegroom (Jesus) did not know them and they did not get into the wedding. The wise bridesmaids therefore could not give help the unwise bridesmaids with their lack of the power of love. Thinking about it, the same way olive oil is made useful by crushing the olive, we humans too to get the power of love out of our hearts have to crush our hearts a little bit by personal sacrifice to serve others to make it useful to others and a present to God.
My friends this is November in the Catholic Church calendar. It is the month of remembering the Dead and to contemplate our own deaths. In two weeks, this year’s Church calendar of Year A ends and we start Year B and again review the life of Jesus from the moment of his birth on Christmas. At this time in November the Church challenges us with readings about the end of the world to prepare us for that future which nobody knows the time.
Jesus is our friend and savior and wants us to be with him forever, now in this life through prayer, attending Mass and in doing loving works. Remember what Jesus said, “when you feed, give drink, clothing, shelter, visits to the weakest persons you are doing it to me.” Jesus knows us by our love. Let us show our bridegroom, Jesus, our love for him by our love for others. Thank you very much.