Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time ( Memorial of Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church)
What had been overwhelmed my mind for the last few weeks has finished on last Saturday. It has been my deep agony that made me not be able to focus on my prayer or meditation. My mind and my body have been A little cranky. Kind of sensitive. But luckily I could finish that up with many thanks to the people who had gone through that time with me, and God allowed me to have another little experience of his love.
So for the last few days, I finally could have peaceful meditations. During my meditation, I thought about ‘being cranky’, staying with the gospels of last Sunday and today.
Maybe some of you have the same idea with me with reading these gospels. When I was young and just baptised, reading these gospels, I thought the five wise virgins seemed too much selfish. I thought they should have tried to go with the other five foolish virgins together. And the master on today’s gospel seemed to too mean to me. I thought he should have let the servant take a rest before serving his dinner and he should have to say thanks to him. Don't you agree with me?
But these days I meet these Gospel differently. Did my question has been solved? No. I still think they are mean. But I got a little change. I am focusing on this Gospels with a little different perspective. Maybe I can express the change in this way. As time goes by, I find myself have been more involved with the true message of the gospel.
For instance, the changes have occurred when I met this kind of sentence.
" In point of power, they have no power to transfuse and put over their righteousness to another; as a man cannot divide and part his life between him and another."
My experiences in my life taught me that I cannot easily blame the five wise virgins who had been waiting for their bridegroom. and made me understood more why they could not easily share their Bridegroom.
My experiences in my life deepened my understanding of their waiting. For instance, when I meet the following experience.
Our sisters are running the facility for single unmarried mothers. Once a month I go there to meet the mothers and the babies. The day I went there last time was the day one of the mothers send her baby to the adoption centre. Before sending the baby I took the baby in my arms instead of the mother for a while. During I was holding the baby, so many thoughts and emotions came up in my mind and in my head. I thought,
”How the mother had been feeling, waiting for the baby for 10 months."
For the last few days of my meditation, I have been thinking about the mother’s waiting. She must have tremendously many stories, many thoughts, and many emotions in her waiting until she delivered and met the baby. And again, during her another waiting to send the baby away.
During my meditation, I Could see my blaming on those five virgins and the master seemed a little stone, compares to the sea of their tremendously many stories, thoughts and emotions. I could finally see this after I became this less cranky now. And it is now that I become less cranky, that I found out what today’s gospel says is we should be free from all kinds of rewards from the world for my effort. While I was cranky and less experienced I could not see things right.
From now I will also have many waitings, with many stories, thoughts, and emotions. I also will continue becoming more cranky and less cranky over and over again. So I prayed now when I become get tired and cranky, God let me remind me of today’s meditation and tell me that I need more time and experiences to see things right. I hope God do that to you too when you get tired and become cranky.
And I would like to add one more sentence on today’s homily. It is valuable that talking about abortion. But also we have to pray and take more care of those who have already made a valuable decision. So that they would not regret it.