The ten virgins

Today's gospel is from Matthew 25: http://www.usccb.org/nab/083107.shtml#gospel

Today’s reading continues the “stay awake” admonition of Jesus from yesterday. Here, there is a kind of depiction of two kinds of people that goes back to Aesop and the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. Here there are those who have provided for themselves with care. They are preserved against the day of want. The others have been negligent in their preparations---when the day of want comes, that being their failure to let their little lights shine because they have no oil, they are rejected. Since the oil represents their spiritual preparedness, the rather un-Christian refusal to share is not really that, but rather it shows that when it comes to the holiness of our lives, it belongs to us alone, and cannot be shared. Each follower of Christ has to prepare themselves for the day of judgment and if we cannot show the oil of holiness, then the possibility of being rejected by Christ becomes a tragic reality. Stay awake!