Homily for the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

November 8, 2026



A student, rather lazily inclined, noticed that a classmate always did well on her Spanish lessons. One day, he asked her, “How is it that you always do so perfectly on your Spanish lessons?”

“Before I study,” she told him, “I always pray that I may remember my lessons and repeat them well.”

“So that’s her secret method,” he thought. “Well, then, I’ll pray too.” That night he prayed up a storm, recalling as many prayers as he could remember. However, the next day he could not even repeat one phrase from the lesson. Quite perplexed, he looked for his friend and, finding her, confronted her for being deceitful.

“I prayed,” he told her, “but I could not repeat a single phrase from yesterdays homework.”

“Perhaps,” she told him, “you took no pains to learn the lesson!”

“Of course not,” said the boy. “I didn’t study at all. I had no reason to study. You told me to pray that I might remember the lesson.”

“That’s your problem,” she said, “I told you I prayed before, not instead of, studying.”

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This story reminds me of a commercial that I’ve seen lately. It’s an ad for preparation for retirement. A person who has taken advantage of the investment services of the company feels that he is well on his way in preparing for his retirement. He then asks another person what he’s doing to prepare. His friend says he has strong, positive thoughts about retirement. He demonstrates by closing his eyes, crossing fingers on both hands, and fervently says, “Come on, retirement!”

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That’s the way it is in the story Jesus tells in today’s gospel passage. You have some individuals who have prepared themselves fully for the task ahead, having not only oil lamps, but also a sufficient supply of oil to keep the lamps burning brightly.

The other group is only half-prepared. They have the lamps, but they do not have a sufficient supply of oil. So, in their panic, they race to buy oil at the last minute, but find that it’s too little, too late.

This lesson of preparedness can be applied to many areas of our lives. Many of us are born procrastinators. Perhaps we wait until the last minute to study for exams when we are in school. We put off making wills or purchasing cemetery plots. We don’t get enough life insurance to take care of loved ones. And we can put off getting serious about our relationship with God until some sort of crisis comes along.

The people in our gospel needed two things. All of them were half-way there: all had lamps. But half of them procrastinated, never purchased the oil they would need, and came up short in the end.

We’re coming toward the end of the Church’s year. Shortly, we will be celebrating the First Sunday of Advent, which starts the new liturgical year. So, at the end of the year, our readings bid us to think about the end-times. We don’t know when that will be (Jesus says “you know neither the day nor the hour”.) So, we’re given something to think about. When it comes to being ready for exams, for retirement, for making sure our families are taken care of, for making our wishes known in wills and other final documents, how prepared are we? It’s not enough to cross our fingers and hope for the best, or to plan to get to it “someday.” Let’s ask ourselves: What still needs to be done as we prepare for both this life and the next?