for August 28
Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

The theme of today’s readings is wisdom and foolishness. The foolish virgins, or bridesmaids, assume the bridegroom will arrive when expected. They come to greet him properly but are unprepared to keep their lamps burning when he is late. The wise virgins, on the other hand, prudently bring extra oil for their lamps and so are prepared for the unexpected delay. Then they all fall asleep. When the foolish ones ask the wise ones to share from their reserve, the wise ones refuse, fearing that will cause them to run out. So the foolish ones go to buy more oil and by the time they return, the wedding feast has started and they are not only locked out but disavowed by the bridegroom. On the face of it, this not only seems unfair but contrary to Jesus’s injunction to share. The point of the parable, however, is in the last line. Jesus, represented by the bridegroom, will eventually return to bring the kingdom of heaven, symbolized as the wedding feast, to fulfillment but “you know neither the day nor the hour.” So be prepared. And stay attentive—not to signs Jesus is about to reappear but to the way you are living your life. Jesus wants us to be following his teachings because we believe them and not just because we want to get in on the reward.

In the first reading, Paul is likewise enjoining wisdom on the Corinthians, but he’s having a hard time of it. The Corinthians are a fractious bunch and Paul is trying to unite them. His appeal is to the heart of their faith, Jesus’s death on the cross, which is at odds with the worldly factionalism that has arisen among them. In focusing on the cross, Paul highlights one of his favorite themes, the tension between belonging to Christ and belonging to the world. Wisdom is from God, but it has been distorted by the world so that it no longer leads people to God. It has become too much about ideas that can be written about and debated and too little about faith that can be experienced. Jesus’s sacrificial death, seen as foolishness by sophisticated thinkers, is the wisdom of love that connects people, including the church in Corinth, to God and to one another. To belong to Christ crucified (and resurrected) is to be wise. To consider the redemption of the cross foolishness is to belong to the world.

It can be difficult to wrap your mind around all this. It can’t be understood rationally. A story told about St. Augustine, whose feast day it is, might help put it in perspective. Augustine is one of the Church’s most influential saints, having made a lasting impact on theology, spirituality, and religious life. He wrote many works, including one on the Trinity. One day, as he was trying to understand that mystery, he was walking along the seashore and came upon a boy who had dug a hole in the sand and was running back and forth to the sea with a seashell. Augustine asked him what he was doing, and the boy said that he was working on pouring the sea into his hole. When Augustine told him that was impossible since the sea was very large and the hole very small, the boy replied that he would sooner get the sea into the hole than Augustine would understand the Trinity with his limited human understanding. The boy then disappeared from Augustine’s sight. The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.

The mind balks, but the heart has its own ways of knowing.  As the psalm tells us:

The Lord brings to nought the plans of nations;
he foils the designs of peoples.
But the plan of the Lord stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.

—Christine Szczepanowski

The readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.