Friday, August 28, 2026
Friday of the Twenty-first week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 25:1-13
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
1 Corinthians 1:17-25
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe. For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 33:1-2,4-5,10,11
Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous! Praise is fitting for the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Sing praises to him with the harp of ten strings. For the Lord’s word is right. All his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the loving kindness of the Lord. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the thoughts of the peoples to be of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands fast forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Gospel
Matthew 25:1-13
“Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘What if there isn’t enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Most certainly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
Lectio
Today the words *wise* and *foolish* change hands. Paul tells us that the wisdom of the world has been overturned, that God has chosen what looks like foolishness — a crucified man — to save those who believe. And then the Gospel gives us five wise virgins and five foolish ones, and the wisdom that matters there is startlingly humble. It isn't cleverness or eloquence or the ability to argue God into being. It is simply having brought enough oil. The wise ones are not distinguished by anything brilliant; they are distinguished by a quiet, unglamorous readiness that no one noticed until midnight.
There is something tender and sobering in the detail that all ten slept. The wise were not more awake, not more heroic in the waiting. The difference lay in what they had prepared long before the drowsiness came — the oil already poured, the vessel already filled. So much of the spiritual life is like this: not the dramatic vigil we imagine, but the small provisions we lay up in ordinary hours, so that when the cry comes at an hour we did not choose, there is something to burn. You cannot borrow this at the last moment. It cannot be lent to you by a friend. It has to have been yours, quietly, all along.
And perhaps this is where Paul and the Gospel meet: the oil is not the wisdom of words but the folly of love, gathered slowly, without applause. The bridegroom delays. The delay is real and it wearies us. But the faithful heart keeps a little oil against the darkness, trusting that the door which finally opens is not the end of a test but the beginning of a feast.
What is the "oil" you have been meaning to gather but keep postponing — a prayer, a reconciliation, a habit — that you could actually begin filling today?
Where in your life are you hoping to borrow at the last minute what can only be built slowly now, and who or what are you quietly counting on to cover for you?
Saint of the day
St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora