“Be prepared!” This is the motto of the Boy Scouts. For Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts in the United States, the motto means that the scouts should “always be in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.”
This motto is also the message of today’s Gospel. Why were some of the virgins prepared with oil for their lamps as they awaited the arrival of the groom while others were not? We don’t know. But the message applies to our spiritual life. We should always be in a state of readiness in mind and body to experience the presence and activity of God in our lives.
“Finding God in all things,” a core Ignatian principle, presupposes an attentiveness, an openness to receive the graces from God at any time and in any place.
“Are you prepared?!”
—Fr. Dan Reim, SJ, is campus chaplain at Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland, OH.