The maidens have all fallen asleep, both the wise and the foolish. I think sometimes all of us get into a kind of auto-pilot mode in the way we are living our lives. We get caught up in the tasks and activities of daily life and forget about our waiting for God.
We do not know the day nor the hour when the Lord will make himself known to us. We do not know when our presence and focus will be called upon. We do not know when we will be called to make our final journey to God.
But perhaps this is ok. Recently, I heard a pastor refer to “the idol of certainty”. We always want to know
what is going to happen and when. But the reality is that we do not and cannot really know everything. Can we learn to live with this uncertainty?
What do we make of the sleeping maidens and the suddenness of the bridegroom’s arrival? Perhaps we are being invited to live the ordinariness of our lives, but to do so aware that things can change suddenly. It is an
invitation to live in a spirit of preparedness but without worshipping the idol of certainty.
How do I experience the mundanity of life? Am I able to balance the tension of preparedness and openness?
Reflections by Sean van Staden SJ
