List of points

Let us open the gospel of St Matthew at chapter twenty-five. We read, 'The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins, who went to bring the bridegroom and his bride home, taking their lamps with them. Five of these were foolish, and five were wise.' The evangelist tells us that the wise virgins had made good use of their time. They had prudently gone and provided themselves with the necessary amount of oil, and were ready when they were told: 'See, it's time. Behold, the bridegroom is on his way; go out to meet him!' They turned up their lamps and went out joyfully to welcome him.

That day will come for us. It will be our last day, but we're not afraid of it. Trusting firmly in God's grace, we are ready from this very moment to be generous and courageous, and take loving care of little things: we are ready to go and meet Our Lord, with our lamps burning brightly. For the feast of feasts awaits us in Heaven. 'Dearly beloved brethren, it is we who are called to take part in the wedding feast of the Word, we who already have faith in the Church, who are nourished on Sacred Scripture, and who rejoice because the Church is united to God. Ask yourselves now, I pray you, whether you have come to the feast wearing your wedding garment: examine your thoughts attentively.' I assure you, and I say the same to myself, that our wedding garment has to be woven with our love of God, a love we will have learnt to reap even in the most trivial things we do. It is precisely those who are in love who pay attention to details, even when they're doing apparently unimportant things.

Temperance is self-mastery. Not everything we experience in our bodies and souls should be given free rein. Nor ought we to do everything we can do. It is easier to let ourselves be carried away by so-called natural impulses; but this road ends up in sadness and isolation in our own misery.

Some people don't want to deny anything to their stomach, eyes, or hands. They refuse to listen when they are advised to lead clean lives. As for the faculty of generating new life — a great and noble faculty, a participation in God's creative power — they misuse it and make it a tool for their own selfish ends.

But I never did like talking about impurity. I would rather consider the rich rewards that temperance brings. I want to see men who are really men, and not slaves to cheap glitter, as worthless as the trinkets that magpies gather. A manly person knows how to do without those things that may harm his soul and he also comes to realise that his sacrifice is more apparent than real; for living this way, with a spirit of sacrifice, means freeing oneself from many kinds of slavery and savouring instead, in the depths of one's heart, the fullness of God's love.

Life then takes on again shades and tones which intemperance had tended to blur. We find ourselves able to care for the needs of others, to share what is ours with everyone, to devote our energies to great causes. Temperance makes the soul sober, modest, understanding. It fosters a natural sense of reserve which everyone finds attractive because it denotes intelligent self control. Temperance does not imply narrowness, but greatness of soul. There is much more deprivation in the intemperate heart which abdicates from self-dominion only to become enslaved to the first caller who comes along ringing some pathetic, tinny cow bell.

Let us turn once again to the Gospels, and look at ourselves in our model, in Jesus Christ.

James and John, through their mother, have asked Jesus for places at his right and at his left. The other disciples are angry with them. What is Our Lord's answer to all this? 'Whoever has a mind to be great among you, must be your servant; and whoever has a mind to be first among you, must be the slave of all; for the Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'

On another occasion they were going to Capharnaum. Jesus may have been walking ahead of them as he did on other days. 'And there, when they were in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they kept silence, for on the way they had' once more 'been disputing among themselves which of them was the greatest. Then he sat down, and called the twelve to him, and said, "If anyone has a mind to be the first, he must be the last of all, and the servant of all." And he took a little child, and set him in the midst of them; and taking him into his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes such a child as this in my name, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes, not me, but him who sent me."'

Doesn't this way Jesus has of doing things move us to love him? He teaches them the doctrine and then, to enable them to understand it, he gives them a living example. He calls a little child, one of the children running around the house, and he lovingly embraces him. How eloquent Our Lord's silence is! With it he has already said everything. He loves those who become as little children. He then adds that the reward for this simplicity, for this humility of spirit, is the joy of being able to embrace him and his Father who is in heaven.

Overcome any sluggishness you may feel, and the false excuse that prayer can wait for later. Let us never put off this vital source of grace until tomorrow. Now is the right time. God, who is a loving spectator of everything we do, watches over our most intimate needs. You and I, I tell you once again, we need to confide in him as we might confide in a brother, a friend, a father. Tell him, as I am telling him now, that he is all greatness, all goodness, all mercy. Tell him also, 'This is why I want to fall in love with you, despite my rough manner and poor hands, soiled and ill-treated by the dust and grime of this earth.'

In this way, almost without realising it, we will go forward at God's pace, taking strong and vigorous strides. We will come to sense deep in our hearts that when we are close to Our Lord we are able to find joy in suffering, self-denial and sorrow. What a great source of strength it is for a son of God to know that he is so close to his Father! This is why, my Lord and Father, no matter what happens, I stand firm and secure with you, because you are my rock and my strength.

'The disciples', writes St John, 'did not know that it was Jesus. Have you caught anything, friends, Jesus asked them, to season your bread with?' The close, family nature of this scene fills me with happiness and joy. That Jesus, my God, should say this! He, who already has a glorified body! 'Cast to the right of the boat, and you will have a catch. So they cast the net, and found before long they had no strength to haul it in, such a shoal of fish was in it.' Now they understand. They, the disciples, recall what they have heard so often from their Master's lips: fishers of men, apostles. And they realise that all things are possible, because it is He who is directing their fishing.

'Whereupon the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord.' Love, love is farsighted. Love is the first to appreciate kindness. The adolescent Apostle, who felt a deep and firm affection for Jesus, because he loved Christ with all the purity and tenderness of a heart that had never been corrupted, exclaimed: 'It is the Lord!'

'Simon Peter, hearing him say that it was the Lord, girded up the fisherman's coat, and sprang into the sea.' Peter personifies faith. Full of marvellous daring, he leaps into the sea. With a love like John's and a faith like Peter's, what is there that can stop us?

'The other disciples followed in the boat (they were not far from land, only some hundred yards away), dragging their catch in their net behind them.' They bring in the catch and immediately place it at Our Lord's feet, because it is his. This is a lesson for us, so that we may learn that souls belong to God; that no one on earth has that right over souls; and that the Church's apostolate, by which it announces and brings about salvation, is not based on the prestige of any human beings but on the grace of God.

Jesus questions Peter, three times, as if to give him a triple chance to atone for his triple denial. Peter has learned his lesson from the bitter experience of his wretchedness. Aware of his weakness, he is deeply convinced that rash claims are pointless. Instead he puts everything in Christ's hands. 'Lord, you know well that I love you. Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.' What is Christ's reply? 'Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.' 'Not yours, Peter; not yours: mine!' Because he created man; he redeemed man; he has bought each soul, one by one, at the cost, I say once again, of his Blood.

In the fifth century, when the Donatists were orchestrating their attacks against the Catholics, they claimed that Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, couldn't possibly profess the truth because he had previously been a great sinner. St Augustine suggested to his brothers in the faith that they could reply as follows: 'Augustine is a bishop in the Catholic Church. He bears his burden and he will have to give an account of it to God. I met him in the company of good men. If he is a bad man, he will know it. But even if he is good, it is not in him that I have put my trust, because the first thing I learned in the Catholic Church is not to put my hope in any man.'

We are not doing our apostolate. If we were, what could we possibly say? We are doing Christ's apostolate, because God wants it to be done and because he has commanded us to do it: 'Go out all over the world, and preach the Gospel to the whole of creation.' The errors are ours; the fruits are his.

Ego quasi vitis fructificavi…: 'like the vine I sprouted beautiful branches and my blossoms gave forth savoury and rich fruits'. We have read these words in today's Epistle. May our souls and the souls of all Christians be full of that sweet fragrance which is devotion to our Mother, and may it bring us to trust entirely in her who watches over us at all times.

'I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge and of holy hope.' These are the lessons which Mary reminds us of today. The lesson of fair love, of living a clean life, of having a sensitive and passionate heart, so that we may learn to be faithful in our service to the Church. This is no ordinary love. It is Love itself. There is no room here for betrayal, or calculation, or forgetfulness. It is a fair, a beautiful love, because its beginning and end is God, who is thrice Holy, who is all Beauty, all Goodness and all Greatness.

But there is also a reference to fear. For myself, the only fear I can imagine is that of turning away from Love. God Our Lord certainly does not want us to be inhibited, timid or lukewarm about our dedication to him. He wants us to be daring, courageous and refined. When the sacred text speaks of fear here I am reminded of a complaint we find elsewhere in Scripture, 'I searched for my heart's love, but found him not.'

This can happen, if one has not yet fully understood what it means to love God. Then our hearts can be swayed by things which do not lead to Our Lord and so we lose sight of him. At other times it may be Our Lord who hides himself. He knows the reason why. In such cases, he will be encouraging us to seek him more earnestly and, when we find him, we shall be able to cry out with joy, 'I took hold of him and I will never let him go.'

The Gospel in today's Mass has called to our minds a moving scene in Jesus' life, when he stayed behind in Jerusalem teaching in the temple. Mary and Joseph 'had gone a whole day's journey before they made enquiry for him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. When they could not find him, they made their way back to Jerusalem in search of him.' The Mother of God, who looked for her Son so anxiously when he was lost through no fault of her own, and experienced such great joy in finding him, will help us retrace our steps and put right whatever may be necessary when, because of our carelessness or our sins, we have been unable to recognise Christ. With her help we will know the happiness of holding him in our arms once more, and telling him we will never lose him again.

Mary is also the Mother of knowledge, for it is with her that we learn the most important lesson of all, that nothing is worthwhile if we are not close to Our Lord. All the wonders of this earth, the fulfilment of our every ambition, all this is worthless unless the living flame of love burns within us, unless there is the light of holy hope giving us a foretaste of never-ending love in our true homeland in heaven.