Jesus told this parable to his disciples: "The reign of God can be likened to ten bridesmaids who took their torches and went out to welcome the groom. Five of them were foolish while the other five were sensible. The foolish ones, in taking their torches, brought no oil along, but the sensible ones took flasks of oil as well as their torches. The groom delayed his coming, so they all began to nod, and then to fall asleep. At midnight someone shouted, `The groom is here. Come out and greet him!' At the outcry, all the virgins woke up and got their torches ready. The foolish ones said to the sensible, `Give us some of your oil. Our torches are going out.' But the sensible ones replied, `No, there may not be enough for you and us. You had better go to the dealers and buy yourselves some.' While they went off to buy it, the groom arrive, and the ones who were ready went into the wedding with him. Then the door was barred. Later the other bridesmaids came back. `Master, master,' they cried. `Open the door for us.' But he answered, `I tell you, I do not know you.' The moral is, keep your eyes open, for you do not know the hour or the day." (Matthew 25:1-13)

Several years ago when I was in residence in a parish in Los Angeles, the pastor of the parish asked me if I would handle a marriage case. It was a case that involved getting an annulment. In inquiring about the annulment, I learned--as happens so many times in areas where there is a large third-world population--that many people come into our country with what we call "visitors' visas." They're here for a short duration of time only, but they want to stay here. Life is better here than it is in the country whence they have come. So one of the ways they find to get to stay here is that they take several thousands of dollars--always in cash--and they pay someone to enter into a civil marriage with them. They go to Las Vegas or to the Wilshire Wedding Chapel and they are married. They do not live together as husband or wife, and they stay married until they get the envied green card. Once they have the green card, which allows them to stay, then they go through a civil divorce. Gradually they earn enough money and they bring the loved one from their country and they come to get married. So you have to apply for an annulment for lack of form--they didn't follow the right form; they didn't follow the right procedure, a technicality of the law. Of course you can easily get an annulment under such circumstances. One of the things you have to do to get the annulment of course is to present a baptismal certificate. In that diocese you have to present a copy of the marriage license, the divorce papers, you have to have two witnesses for the woman, two witnesses for the man, that they were married in such-and-such place, and they never had it convalidated, or were not married in the church, and so on.

So this young man came to me and we went through all the procedures. Then I said, "Joe, I'll need a baptismal certificate, and it has to be a recent certificate." And he said, "Well, I don't have one." "Well," I asked, "can you write back to Biafra and get one?" "No, I can't." "Don't you have any relatives in Biafra who can get one for you?" "No, I have relatives, but they can't get my baptismal certificate." At this point I was getting a bit impatient, and I said, "Joe, why can't you get a baptismal certificate? All those records are kept in the parish." "Well, Father, when we had the civil war in Biafra, the opposing tribe burned down our church and rectory and all the records went with it." So I said, "Is there anyone in Los Angeles who knows that you were baptized, who were there, who can give an affidavit that you were baptized?" "Well, I have an aunt, and I have a good friend; I've known him all my life." "Well, bring them in and we'll take an affidavit."

There was no problem with the aunt, but the other young man, it dawned on me, was three or four years younger than the man who was going to be baptized. And in the course of taking the affidavit I said to him, "How is it that you, who are three or four years younger than Joe, how is it that you could have been present at his baptism." He said, "Father, Joe is a son of the chieftain of the tribe. They're converts. In Africa, when you have the chieftain or any baptism, you have a celebration. It is a mighty celebration. It's the whole village that turns out. It isn't just a celebration of a meal or a piece of cake and ice cream, like you do in America. It's a celebration that goes on night and day for a whole week. I remember that celebration because we've never had one like it in the village, before or since." I said, "Fine, you were present." We got the annulment.

Why do I give that story and what relation does it have to the Gospel this morning? Because the situation that Jesus is describing with the marriage is very similar in Third World countries, and I think the things we did in parishes in earlier days when towns and parishes were smaller, when events happened, the whole town--the whole village, the whole community--turned out. And we have to remember something of the custom of the Jewish marriage ceremony of these people. The custom was that the groom stayed in the father's house; the bride stayed in the mother's house. And when the time of the wedding came, and often the weddings were at night, then the whole people except the bride and her bridesmaids, and maybe a couple of older women who stayed with them, everybody--the whole village--went off tot the groom's house to bring the groom back to the bride's house where they would have the wedding. Then they'd have a celebration that went on for several days. We get the same picture in the Gospel of John in the description of the marriage feast of Cana. The wine has run out because they have celebrated for so many days.

Now Jesus takes that kind of thing, that situation of practical life, that ever one of his hearers would have experienced and would have known about, and he uses that as a vehicle for teaching several very fine theological points. One of the points is, "What is Judgment, and how do we prepare for Judgment?" You and I often think of Judgment as something, especially when it comes to spiritual or religious things, we think of Judgment as something that's way down in the future, at an unknown time. Perhaps it's only as we get older, and we begin to realize we are going to have to face God sooner or later, do we begin to be concerned about things. But always it's something that is way out there. And what Jesus tells us in all of the Judgment parables--because this is a Judgment parable in Matthew's Gospel--is that Judgment isn't something that takes place in the unknown future. Judgment is happening right now in present time. And Matthew wants his community, and he wants us to know that you and I as well as they back then are in the very process of Judgment in what we do or what we fail to do. In other words, sins of commission or sins of omission. It's interesting, we always confess the sins of commission, but not many of us confess the sins of omission ("I should have been kinder to my husband"; "I should have been more considerate of people").

But you see, what Jesus wants to tell us is that this is the time, and the bridegroom in the story is Jesus Himself. The marriage feast is not just a marriage feast of a young man and a maiden in a village. It is the wedding feast between God and the people of Israel, the Church. It is the Messianic banquet. When God will take his affianced--you and me--and we shall become His bride. And one of the things that Jesus wants us to see here is that we are in the process of judging ourselves, how we live our life. All that happens at the end time is that Jesus gives a kind of final statement on how we have conducted our lives. A few years ago it was what moral theologians came up with when they called it, "What is the fundamental option of my life?" Is my fundamental option of life toward Jesus or is it away from Jesus? How aware am I in my life that my life is supposed to lead to Jesus, or do I become so forgetful or negligent that my life should lead to Jesus that ultimately God and things of religion or spirituality simply don't enter into my life. They're not important to me. That's what losing faith really is, that we lose contact with God. He's no longer important; He doesn't have a place in our life, and we go on merrily without Him, because we've become so accustomed that we don't even recollect Him.

That's what Jesus wants us to ask: What is the fundamental option in my life? What is the direction in which I am going? One of the things any of us can realize, let me use an example. There are many routes to get to a particular place. If I want to go downtown to the SeaFirst building, it's not a very attractive building, but it's a focal point. If I want to go there, I can get there in many, many ways. I can use many modes of transportation to get there. I can decide to go out to the Valley and then go back in. I can go way up north and then come in, or I can go west and come in. How many ways could I leave from right here at Mary Queen Parish to get to the SeaFirst building in town? Isn't our life often the same way--we take detours, we take roundabout ways to get there. We kind of meander like an inebriated gnat sometimes to get to a place. Do you ever watch robins eat the berries off a mountain ash tree when they have fermented? We are like that sometimes; there's alcohol in those fermented berries and the robins eat them. Then watch them fly--it's fascinating to watch them fly; they're drunk and they can't make a straight line. But that's very much like our lives. Many times we take circuitous routes, serpentine routes, but am I heading, is it my desire to get there? Or is my desire not to get there, have I become someone who doesn't care, it isn't important, I don't even think about getting there?"

We have many times in our religious practices when what we do is we sit down and look at our life, sometimes for a very short time, sometimes for a longer time. We have one such opportunity at the beginning of every Mass. We did it this morning. Maybe we're not conscious that we did it, but we did it. "As we gather to celebrate these Sacred Mysteries, let us be mindful of the mercy of God, and let us look at our life and ask mercy, pardon, forgiveness for our sins." That is what an examination of conscience is. It's looking at my life and asking myself, "What is the goal I have in life? What is my fundamental option? How am I striving to get there, and how am I striving not to get there? What detours, what forgetfulness, what circuitous routes have I got there?" We need to do that often in our life, and confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is simply a time when we acknowledge before God and before the church that I have been negligent in commission or omission in these areas, and I wish to express sorrow, and I wish to receive forgiveness. And in receiving that forgiveness, we are constantly reassured of God's steadfast love for us.

Now what is going to happen to us at the end of time, when we appear, all of us before the dread Judgment Seat of God, is sort of like the replay of some sports event on television. We will see the whole of our life--and the Judgment parables in Matthew's Gospel seem to bear this out--we will see our whole life flash before us. Have you ever met someone who very narrowly escaped drowning? I've met with several. One thing that everyone of them tells me is, "Father, in a very few minutes my whole life flashed before me, and I wasn't very pleased at the direction that it was taking." I think that's what is going to happen, according to Matthew, at Judgment. And what Jesus will say, without condemning us, is "So be it. That's the route you have taken. This is what you have earned for us."

What does the light mean in this parable? I think in Matthew's Gospel we have to go back to Chapter 5, the sermon on the mount, in which Jesus tells His disciples and us, "You must let your good works so shine that the Father in Heaven is praised." What we should ask ourselves, "Do our lives shine that God can be praised?" How our lives shine, or how our lives do not shine, will determine how we have judged ourselves in the now-time. And it will determine what reward we have earned at the end-time.