The Wise and Foolish Virgins: The Five Senses
The Wise and Foolish Virgins: The Five Senses
Friday, August 30th Readings Reflection: Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel recounts the well-known parable of the ten virgins who waited for the bridegroom. Five of the virgins, being wise, brought oil so that their lamps might be burning brightly when the bridegroom arrived. The other five virgins foolishly did not take oil with them, and when the bridegroom arrived, they were absent, having gone in search of oil to buy. When they returned, the bridegroom refused to let them enter the wedding feast. Jesus ended His parable with the warning, “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
St. Jerome, a 4th century Father of the Church, gave a very interesting interpretation of this passage. The Fathers of the Church give us many beautiful, rich interpretations of Sacred Scripture that come from the Apostles themselves. Jesus explained the Scriptures to His Apostles, who in turn passed on these teachings as they preached to the early Christians. The early Christians safeguarded and preserved this Apostolic Tradition, and by the grace of the Holy Ghost, passed down this Tradition unchanged to the next generations. After a few centuries of this Tradition being passed down orally, several of the Church Fathers decided to record it in writing, so that all might be able to know and understand what the Apostles themselves had received from Christ.
Writing about today’s Gospel passage, St. Jerome said that the ten virgins can be understood in various ways; in one way, they symbolize the human race. The separation of the wise and foolish virgins into groups of five, St. Jerome said, may be understood to symbolize the five senses. Our physical senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell can be used for good and to lead us to God.
He references a passage from the First Epistle of St. John, in which the Evangelist writes that “our hands have handled…the [W]ord of life” (1 Jn 1:1 DRB). Psalm 33 refers to the sense of taste: “O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet” (Ps 33:9). The Canticle of Canticles refers to the sense of smell: “Draw me: we will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments” (Cant 1:1). These and other passages show how our senses can draw us to God. However, our senses can also “gape after earthly husks,” in the words of St. Jerome.
St. Augustine gave a corresponding interpretation of this passage, saying that “our appetite must be held from gratification of the eyes, ears, smell, taste, and touch.... [T]his continence may be done before God, to please Him in inward joy of the conscience, or before men only to gain applause of men.” Those who guard their senses to please God are the wise virgins; those who do so out of pride, to gain the admiration of men, are the foolish virgins. Likewise, those who follow the sinful impulses of the flesh, indulging our sinful desires, are like the foolish virgins who cannot enter the wedding feast.
May we always use our senses for the glory of God rather than for sin, so that we, like the wise virgins, may be always ready to greet Christ when He comes.
