The Wise and Foolish Virgins

Fr. Scott Haynes

A Meditation on Matthew 25:1–13

The Gospel places before us ten virgins who look the same in the twilight. All carry lamps. All await the Bridegroom. All fall asleep. From the outside, no distinction can be seen. Yet when the cry pierces the night, everything is revealed. The Church Fathers linger over this parable because it unmasks one of the most dangerous illusions of the spiritual life: the belief that outward religion is enough.

St. John Chrysostom speaks with disarming clarity. The virgins, he tells us, possessed virginity, purity, and chastity, yet some were excluded from the wedding feast. Why? “They had virginity, they had purity, they had chastity, but they lacked almsgiving, mercy, and charity. Therefore, they were shut out.” Holiness cannot live on appearances alone. The lamp may be finely crafted, the wick carefully trimmed, yet without oil it gives no light. Chrysostom presses the point even further: “Nothing is so necessary as charity. Though we should possess virginity, fasting, prayer, and all virtues, without mercy we shall be cast out.” The parable does not condemn sin so much as emptiness. The foolish virgins are not wicked; they are hollow.

St. Augustine draws us inward. He tells us plainly, “The oil is charity. All works without charity profit nothing. Many have lamps, but no oil.” The lamp is what others see: religious language, devout habits, visible good works. The oil is hidden. It is love poured into the soul by God, a living flame sustained by grace. Augustine asks us, almost gently yet relentlessly, what good it is “to shine in outward works, if the heart is dark and empty?” A life can look holy while the soul within is starving. The oil is not borrowed enthusiasm or borrowed faith; it is a slow accumulation of love, prayer, sacrifice, repentance, and fidelity.

St. Gregory the Great deepens the warning. He explains that oil signifies inward charity, while lamps signify outward works. Many do good, he says, but seek human praise. Their lamps shine brightly before men, yet their vessels are empty before God. The foolish virgins did not fail because they did nothing. They failed because they loved wrongly. Their works were not anchored in God but in self, approval, comfort, or delay. When the Bridegroom arrived, their hearts had nothing with which to greet Him.

St. Jerome, ever the ascetic, reminds us that the oil is gathered over time. It is “the treasure of good works laid up in the secret of conscience.” One cannot improvise holiness at the last hour. The foolish virgins assumed there would always be time. Tomorrow, later, someday. But grace ignored grows dim. Conversion postponed becomes conversion lost. Jerome’s reading confronts our habit of spiritual procrastination, our quiet belief that urgency can wait.

All ten virgins fall asleep. The Fathers see here a sober truth: death comes to all. St. Hilary of Poitiers says simply, “The sleep is death. All fall asleep, but not all awake in glory.” Falling asleep is not the danger. What matters is the state of the soul when the cry is heard. We do not know when that cry will sound. It comes at midnight, Scripture tells us, when vigilance is weakest and confidence most fragile.

St. Ambrose calls the midnight cry the trumpet of judgment, sounding suddenly when no one expects. The soul is summoned not when it is ready, but when God wills. There is no time then to prepare what should have been prepared slowly, faithfully, and quietly throughout life.

Then comes the most chilling moment of the parable. “And the door was shut.” Augustine’s words fall like a stone: “After this life, no place for repentance is left. As the tree falls, so shall it lie.” Time ends. Mercy offered but refused no longer pleads. Chrysostom echoes this with sobering realism: “When once the door is closed, prayer is useless, entreaty is vain, tears are shed in vain.” These words are not meant to crush hope, but to awaken urgency while hope remains.

The refusal of the wise virgins to share their oil is not cruelty. It is truth. St. Gregory the Great explains that in that hour no one can help another by merit. Each soul must stand before God on its own account. Holiness cannot be transferred. Grace cannot be borrowed. Parents cannot lend it to children. Friends cannot lend it to friends. Priests cannot lend it to their flock. Each soul appears before the Bridegroom carrying only what it has chosen to receive and preserve.

St. Alphonsus Liguori distills the lesson into moral clarity. The oil that must never be lacking, he says, is sanctifying grace. Without it, even good works give no light before God. The parable is ultimately about dying in friendship with Christ. Everything else is secondary.

The mystics read the parable with a lover’s eyes. St. Bernard of Clairvaux says that the oil is loving desire burning in the depths of the heart, seeking only the Bridegroom. It is longing refined by sacrifice, fidelity deepened by prayer, love purified by waiting. This oil is gathered in silence, in obscurity, in perseverance when no one sees.

St. Teresa of Avila, though not writing a formal commentary, speaks the same truth when she insists that God looks not so much at the greatness of works as at the love with which they are done. Love is the measure. Love is the oil. Love is what keeps the flame alive when the night grows long.

The parable leaves us with a question that cannot be avoided. If the cry were heard tonight, would our lamps still burn? Are our vessels being filled daily with prayer, repentance, mercy, and love? Or are we living on borrowed light, delayed intentions, and outward forms?

St. Augustine’s final exhortation lingers like a quiet plea: “Let us fill our vessels while there is time, lest the Bridegroom come and find us empty.” The Bridegroom is merciful, patient, and generous beyond measure. But He comes only once. And when He comes, He seeks not the brilliance of the lamp, but the depth of the oil within.