(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
Consider life without electricity, Internet, or the other amenities we take for granted. Consider also a time when the bride would leave her family and join permanently the family of her spouse. Let us follow her as she goes with her newly married spouse to make their way from her family and friends to his home and family.
Consider her many relatives and friends who stop the procession from her family to his family. They want to show her and her groom how much they appreciate her and love her. Uncle Emery and Aunt Ellen, for example, with their grandkids want to pause the procession to share the notes and cards mad by the loving hands of small cousins from construction paper. This and many such stops causes the procession to delay.
Meanwhile, at the groom’s place, in the newly-swept out barn, the welcoming party awaits the arrival and the clock ticks away the hours. Presto, the shout comes, that they are coming. Those hired to be light bearers, prepare their torches to light the hall brightly and festively, but, alack and alas, only half of them have enough light for the event. Suddenly, the gala and bodacious event of the decade becomes a cheap-looking, haphazard party, much to the shame and chagrin of the groom and his family. The bride’s family thought the daughter was marrying into a responsible family, but the groom apparently could not even pay the light bill. What a disaster!
Such is the scenario behind today’s reading. Moreover, this is not an ordinary wedding. This is the wedding feast of the Lamb. This is the event of all history. If we are not light for the walls and tables from our lack of preparation, what will the bridegroom do to us? Like the original hearers, we are called to repentance and conversion.