Sunday November 12, 2017
Stupidity Is Not A Virtue
Eduardo was full of piety and devotion. There was no religious activity within 20 kilometers that he did not attend. He was also an idiot. The two can and often do go together. He would stand at a place where transportation seldom passes and pray for a vehicle to come by. If one came he would say his prayer was answered and "praise the Lord." He mortgaged his house to borrow 200,000 from the bank for his family business. The business went broke and the bank warned him that they would foreclose his house. He just said that the Lord would provide. His friends advised him to sell his house for half a million, pay the bank and then he would still have 300,000 to live one. But he said, "The Lord will provide." But his house was foreclosed and he lost everything.
What happened to Eduardo brings to mind the story of the minister who was living in a town in a valley. At the end of the valley there was a huge dam. The security guards there sent a radio message to the town and the dam had burst and advised everyone to evacuate. The minister did nothing; he only said, "The Lord will provide." Later as the water began to gush down the streets, a policeman came and said, "Move!" but the minister said, "The Lord will provide." As the water rose to cover the first floor of his house a boat passed by and he was invited to ride, but he insisted that the Lord would provide. Likewise, he rejected an offer to be picked off the roof by a helicopter. So, he was drowned and (strangely) went to heaven. He approached God and said in fury, "God, I trusted in you and you let me down. You did nothing for me!" God answered, "What do you mean I did nothing for you? Did I not send you a radio message, a policeman, a boat, and a helicopter?"
There is only one thing more insulting to God than asking him to do what we should be doing ourselves and that is asking him to do again what he has already done for us!
Christ gave us today's Gospel story to protect us from the Eduardos of this world. Ten bridesmaids go to meet the bridegroom - we need not try to explain here the customs of the time. Five of the young ladies were wise and five were foolish. Five brought oil with which to refill their lamps and five did not. The bridegroom comes and there is frantic preparation. The foolish have no oil for their lamps. The wise tell them to go and buy some, and in the meantime, the bridegroom comes. The wise go into the celebration and the foolish are left outside. The message is that setting aside human wisdom does not indicate sanctify or closeness to God. Stupidity is not a virtue.
A nun once wrote to St. Bernard that she felt called to be a hermit. Bernard, a wise old man, knew that the desire to become a hermit was less likely to come from a desire to be alone with God than from a desire to get away from others with whom one cannot get along. So, he answered, "Sister, you are either a foolish virgin or a wise virgin. If you are a foolish virgin you need your community. If you are a wise one your community needs you!" (At another time a Bishop asked a group of novices whether they were wise or foolish virgins. They replied "We do not know. All we know is that we are virgins!")
Wisdom and spirituality should go together but this does not always happen. I think most of us would admit - in theory - that God is wiser than us. He has been around a lot longer than us and has been running a pretty complicated show. Yet, when it comes to prayer we have the audacity to tell him exactly what he should and should not do. Often he does not follow our instructions and we only get more frustrated and the mess continues. However, there is another way of praying; the way of meditation.
In this form of prayer, the emphasis is on being and being open. We are not pushing our own plans or telling God what to do.
When we are open, we can more easily hear God's wisdom and respond to it. In the majority of cases there is a remarkable correlation between human wisdom and God's wisdom.
