Behold, the Bridegroom Cometh: Saint Rose of Lima and the Oil of Charity
MASS Dilexísti justítiam
LESSON 2 Cor 10:17-18; 11:1-2
GOSPEL St Matthew 25:1-13
PROPER LAST GOSPEL St Matthew 6:24-33
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved in Christ,
“In the middle of the night there was a cry made: Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him.”
There is something almost severe in today’s Gospel. Ten virgins are waiting. All ten have lamps. All ten expect the Bridegroom. All ten fall asleep. Outwardly, there seems very little difference between them. Yet when the cry comes at midnight, five are ready and five are not. Five enter into the marriage feast; five discover, too late, that the appearance of readiness is not the same thing as actually being ready. The difference is one small thing, easily overlooked until it becomes decisive: the wise virgins have oil in their vessels.
And Holy Mother Church gives us this Gospel today because she wishes us to understand Saint Rose of Lima. We may be tempted to think first of the extraordinary things in her life: the austerities, the fasts, the crown of thorns concealed beneath roses, the little hut in her father’s garden where she prayed, the vigils, the sufferings, her intense devotion to the Passion of Our Lord. All these things are true. Her mortifications were severe; her prayer was profound; she desired purity with an extraordinary intensity; she wept and prayed for the conversion of sinners. But if we think that these things by themselves explain why Rose became a saint, then we have seen the lamp and missed the oil.
For the Church tells us what came first. Listen again to the Collect: Almighty God, giver of all good gifts, Who didst will that blessed Rose, “imbued with the dew of heavenly grace,” should bloom in the Indies with the beauty of virginity and patience. Before Rose fasts, before Rose suffers, before Rose chooses the hidden life, before Rose does anything heroic at all, there is the dew of heavenly grace. Grace comes first. God acts first. God calls first. God gives first. The flower does not manufacture the dew which gives it life. The flower receives it. And this is where every authentic Christian life must begin.
We can so easily turn religion into a catalogue of things we do for God. I prayed this much. I gave up this. I endured that. I kept this rule. I defended this truth. I performed this devotion. And all those things may be excellent. But Saint Paul reminds us in the Epistle: “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he who commendeth himself, is approved, but he, whom God commendeth.” The saint is not the person who succeeds in impressing God with religious achievement. The saint is the person who allows grace to possess him so thoroughly that God’s own life begins to appear in him.
That is why the Collect says that Rose “blooms.” God does not merely command Rose to be good. He causes something to flower in her. And what does that flower look like? The prayer names two things: virginity and patience.
Virginity, first of all, because Rose understood herself as belonging entirely to Christ. Saint Paul says today: “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Christian virginity is not contempt for marriage, nor hatred of the body, nor fear of human love. It is the sign of an even more radical claim: Christ can possess a human heart so entirely that the soul says, “I am Thine.” Rose lived that bridal mystery with extraordinary intensity. She did not merely believe things about Jesus Christ. She belonged to Him.
But the Collect adds patience. That is significant. We might have expected “virginity and penance,” or “virginity and prayer.” Instead the Church says “virginity and patience.” Why? Because holiness is tested not chiefly when devotion feels exciting, but when fidelity costs something. Patience is love remaining in place under pressure. Patience is the lamp continuing to burn while the Bridegroom delays.
“And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept.”
There is the spiritual life in one sentence. The Bridegroom tarries. God does not always come when we want Him to come. Prayer does not always console. Problems are not always solved. Temptations do not always disappear. Illness is not always cured. Sinners for whom we pray do not always convert before our eyes. The Church herself may seem troubled; scandals may multiply; confusion may enter where clarity ought to reign. We say, “Lord, where art Thou?” And the Bridegroom tarries.
Rose knew that experience. Her life was not one endless mystical consolation. The great saints tell us that God sometimes purifies the soul precisely by withdrawing the sweetness which once made prayer easy. Then the question becomes very simple: did we love the consolations, or did we love God?
It is easy to carry the lamp when everyone admires its flame. It is harder to carry the oil in darkness.
And what is that oil? The Fathers of the Church give us a beautiful answer. Saint Augustine points to the interior charity of the soul, the good conscience before God rather than the desire to appear righteous before men. Saint John Chrysostom makes it even more concrete: the oil is mercy; it is almsgiving; it is assistance given to those in need.
Now Saint Rose becomes clearer. The woman who withdrew into a hut to contemplate God was also a woman concerned for others. She prayed and worked. She wept for sinners. Her life was not an escape from neighbour into private spirituality. The lamp of contemplation contained the oil of charity.
That distinction is vital. There is a form of religion that loves the lamp and forgets the oil. It loves the external marks of seriousness. It loves rules, disciplines, visible sacrifices, correct opinions, perhaps even the admiration that comes from appearing more devout than others. But if the oil of charity is absent, the lamp eventually goes out.
And there is also another error, common in our age: to speak of love while rejecting sacrifice. To speak constantly of compassion while refusing penance, discipline, purity, self-denial or the Cross. Saint Rose exposes that illusion too. Charity without sacrifice quickly becomes sentiment. She knew that Our Lord did not redeem us by offering agreeable sentiments about love. He loved us from the Cross.
Rose’s penances were extraordinary. The Church does not ask every Christian literally to reproduce them. We should not imagine that holiness is measured by how much physical pain we can inflict upon ourselves. But neither may we domesticate Rose until nothing challenging remains. Her life stands as a rebuke to a Christianity which wants resurrection without Calvary, holiness without mortification, purity without struggle, mercy without truth, and Heaven without the narrow way.
Her famous spiritual conviction may be expressed very simply: there is no road to Heaven which bypasses the Cross.
That does not mean suffering is good merely because it hurts. It means that after the Fall, love inevitably costs us something. To forgive costs something. To remain faithful costs something. To resist temptation costs something. To keep purity costs something. To care for the sick costs something. To pray when prayer is dry costs something. To remain Catholic when Catholic truth is unfashionable costs something. To put God first costs something.
And this brings us, providentially, to the Gospel of the Sunday which is commemorated today: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be given you besides.”
That one sentence could stand beneath the whole life of Saint Rose.
Seek first the Kingdom.
Not comfort first.
Not reputation first.
Not money first.
Not being understood first.
Not being admired first.
Not even relief from suffering first.
The Kingdom first.
Our Lord speaks in that Sunday Gospel of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. How striking that the feast of Rose should fall beside that Gospel. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.” A flower does not become beautiful through anxious self-assertion. It receives what God gives. The Collect says Rose was touched by the dew of heavenly grace; the Sunday Gospel says that the heavenly Father clothes the lilies. Again, grace comes first. Divine Providence comes first. The Father knows what we need.
But our part is clear: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice.”
That is what Rose did. And because she sought Him first, everything else in her life found its proper order. Her virginity made sense because Christ was first. Her penance made sense because Christ was first. Her prayer made sense because Christ was first. Her love for sinners made sense because Christ was first. Her patience made sense because Christ was first.
And the final question of today’s Gospel is therefore not: are we as extraordinary as Saint Rose? Very few souls are called to her particular path. The question is much more searching.
Is there oil in our lamp?
If tonight were the midnight of the Gospel, if the cry were suddenly heard — “Behold the Bridegroom cometh” — what would He find?
Would He find faith that has become habit but not charity?
Would He find religious appearances without conversion of heart?
Would He find prayers said while grudges were carefully preserved?
Would He find attachment to Catholic Tradition without the virtues which Tradition exists to form in us?
Would He find compassion spoken of loudly but no willingness to sacrifice?
Would He find a lamp beautifully polished, but empty?
Or would He find oil: faith alive with charity, repentance, mercy, purity, patience, fidelity, prayer, generosity, love of neighbour, love of truth, and above all love of Him?
At Holy Communion today the Church repeats the warning and promise of the Gospel: “The five wise virgins took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him.”
And then the Bridegroom comes.
Not merely in a story.
Not merely at the end of the world.
He comes upon this altar.
The One for Whom Rose waited, the One to Whom she gave her virginity, her sufferings, her prayer, her tears and her love; the One whose Passion she contemplated; the One for Whom the wise virgins kept their lamps burning — He comes sacramentally amongst us.
And so we ask Saint Rose not that we may imitate every extraordinary austerity of her life, but that we may possess what made those austerities holy: her totality of love.
May the dew of heavenly grace fall upon us.
May something of Christ truly flower within us.
May patience keep us faithful when the Bridegroom seems to delay.
May charity fill our lamps with oil.
May the Cross cease to frighten us when it is the road upon which Christ walks before us.
And when at last the midnight cry is made — when every lesser concern falls silent and the one great moment comes — may we be found not merely holding lamps, but ready.
“Behold the Bridegroom cometh: go ye forth to meet Him.”
Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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