The readings today speak of faith, of watchfulness, and of trust in God’s promises.  We are all called to keep our lamps burning, to nourish our lives constantly with the sacraments and with our private prayers, to be ready to see Christ when he comes to us.  Sometimes our world and our life can seem very dark.  Sad things happen that we can’t understand.  That’s why we have to keeps our lamps lit and full of the oil of God’s grace.  Our relationship with God that we develop in the ordinary, routine moments of life, will keep us on the right road when the world around us seems to be dark.  It’s a kind of spiritual vaccination: by having a rich, consistent relationship with God first, we’re inoculated against the power of darkness whenever it might come.  

The apostles ask the Lord whether this parable of the lamp applies just to them or to everyone.  I like that question.  Before I was ordained, I would catch myself thinking things like, “all that prayer business, that’s for priests. They’ll take care of that.”  Now that I’ve been a priest for a few years, I catch myself thinking things like “all that prayer business, well that’s for the Nashville Dominicans, monks and hermits and people holier than I am.”  No matter what our state in life, we can all be really slick at convincing ourselves that we don’t have to be holy, don’t have to pray, don’t have to work on our relationship with God.  But we do.  Each one of us.  We are all called to holiness.  At the most basic level, we all have the same vocation: the vocation of a child of God. We would all make better decisions, treat our family and friends better, do our work more efficiently, even have more meaningful leisure, if we could keep in mind the simple fact, “I am a beloved child of God.”  If we kept this simple truth at the forefront of our mind and came back to it again and again every day: I am a child of God.  

Now this could not be more critical today, in our own time.  We are surrounded by a culture that demands that we act like atheists in public, even though we are not, a culture that tolerates faith only as a hobby to indulge in for a few hours on the weekend, and rejects the idea that our beliefs might actually affect the way we live our lives.  We are surrounded by a culture that is in a crisis of meaning.  If there’s no God, or if there is some higher power but it doesn’t really involve itself in the world, or if I only exist because of a series of coincidences in my family history, if I have no purpose in my life, it would be very easy to wonder if I really matter, if my choices really matter.  We know however, that God loves us, God decided to create each one of us purely out of love.  It’s good for us to remember that God doesn’t need us, as funny as that sounds.  If he did, he wouldn’t be God.  He’s totally self-sufficient.  He doesn’t need little people to play with, or a world down here to entertain him.  Because doesn’t need us, that actually shows us how very much we are worth.  He created us, when he didn’t need to.  He is active in the course of our history, which he doesn’t need to be.  When we turned away from him by our sin, he didn’t respond in kind by abandoning us like we abandoned him; quite the contrary, he sent his Son to live among us and to die in order to repair our relationship with him, which he certainly didn’t need to.  He doesn’t need us.  He chooses us.  Which means that he really loves us. Which is why we know that he won’t lead us astray.  

Pope Benedict used to say frequently, “Don’t be afraid of Christ.” There’s a stereotype out there, that living our Catholic Faith, following the teachings of the Church, especially the unpopular teachings about morality and purity for example, will somehow make us unhappy, or repressed, or boring.  Nothing could be further from truth.  God created us and knows what will fulfill us.  God wants only the best for us; he has nothing but pure love for us.  And so we should continue to discern God’s will, continue to pray to ask him to help us in navigating the various crossroads of our life.  We should trust him.  We should never be afraid to live the noble life of virtue that he proposes to us.  We should continue to keep our lamps burning, watchful for the Lord’s signs to us, listening for his voice.  His love is our greatest treasure and brightest light: it will guide us through the dark times of our life, direct the decisions we make, and prepare us for eternal life with him in heaven.