ALL OF US MATTER

ALL OF US MATTER (Holy & Great Tuesday)

On this Holy and Great Tuesday we remember the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Mt 25), in which ten virgins are given ONE simple job, – to accompany the bridegroom into the wedding with lighted oil lamps, whenever he arrives. But five of the ten virgins were so indifferent to their little job, that they did not bother to fill their lamps with oil. Perhaps they thought it was unimportant, or that they did not really matter, – or maybe they were generally despondent, depressed, and trapped in feelings of uselessness and self-pity, along the lines of – “I don’t matter anyway, I’m just a foolish little virgin and nobody takes me seriously… These wise virgins are the ones that matter, so they will take care of me and my oil-situation when the time comes…”
So in today’s main hymn, in the Bridegroom-service Troparion, “Behold, the bridegroom comes at midnight...”, we are warned not to be like this despondent and complacent bunch (see the full Troparion below). Because we do matter, and we have been invited, – however little or unimportant our assigned job at the “wedding” may seem to us. So let me take my little vocation seriously today, and not slip into feelings of uselessness and self-pity, as if “others” are wiser and better and can cover for me with their “oil.” My Lord has invited me, with my own little lamp, which it’s my job to fill. It is my heart, which I am to open up and fill with God’s divine energies known as “grace.” Come and abide in us, Lord, and let me enter with You today, as I do the one, simple job You have given me. “Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching, and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless (ῥαθυμοῦντα, унывающа – indifferent, despondent, lazy, sluggish). Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom! But rouse yourself, crying: Holy, holy, holy, are You, O our God! Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!