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.
Taken
from Sundays
into Silence - A Pathway to Life. Copyright © 1998 by Claretian
Publications
