A Brief Tutorial

 

Understanding “gird your loins” and “light your lamps”

10/21/2025

Luke 12:35-38 Jesus said to his disciples: "Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants."

Whenever I preside at funeral Masses, I give a brief tutorial before we pray the Our Father, focusing on the words, “Thy kingdom come.” I say to the family and friends of the deceased: “At this point in the funeral we pray the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father. And there are 7 things we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer, seven petitions. In one petition we say, ‘Thy kingdom come.’ What does that mean, ‘Thy kingdom come’?”

I continue: “It means we want Jesus to come back at the end of time and establish his kingdom definitively. And the sooner the better: Thy kingdom come!” Then I conclude: “Well, the kingdom has come in a very personal and permanent way for our loved one who has died. And we pray he stands before the King of kings today. That we, too, may be in that kingdom, we pray as our Lord taught us.”

That brief tutorial helps people to pray with more attention and hopefully more anticipation. That is, the end of the world is not something we should dread but something we should desire. Why? Well, because it announces the second coming of Christ, the Parousia, the Eschaton, the Consummation of the world.

Or, as the Book of Revelation 19:9 describes it: “Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” In other words, we should anxiously await the end of the world like we look forward to a wedding: with desire, not dread.

In the gospel today Jesus uses wedding imagery to talk about his second coming. He tells his disciples: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.”

This wedding image in Luke 12:35-38 bears a striking resemblance to the parable of the ten virgins in Mt 25:1-13.

You recall the five wise virgins who kept their lamps lit with ample oil until the bridegroom (Jesus) were to return. Again, virgins know how to gird their loins and are awaiting the bridegroom from a wedding. Let me suggest two interpretations of the phrases, “gird your loins” and “light your lamps.”

First “gird your loins” refers to sexual restraint and virtue, that is, chastity. I tell young engaged couples that one of the best ways to prepare for their wedding day is to refrain from sexual intimacy. Why? If they have been engaging in sexual relations the whole time then their honeymoon night will feel like just another night. And if their sex life has become routine and even a little bit boring, they may look at it more with dread then with desire.

Incidentally, this phrase gird your loins is also why the Church recommends married couples practice Natural Family Planning, or periodic abstinence, instead of contraception. Why? So married people can also gird their loins and practice self-control, the self-mastery of chastity. Then after they have fasted for a time from sexual intimacy, they will look forward to the feast of sexual intimacy with more desire than dread.

Second, the phrase “light your lamps” – and especially Matthew 25’s mention of keeping the lamps lit – suggests our baptism, when we received the light of Christ as we lit our baptismal candles from the Easter Candle, the Christ Candle. By the way, how do our baptismal candles become extinguished and in need of re-lighting?

That occurs every time we commit sins, especially mortal sins. And then how do we re-light our baptismal candle? We go to confession. This is why in the early Church the sacrament of confession was frequently referred to as “a second baptism.” When Jesus says “light your lamps” and keeping your lamps lit he is talking about the sacraments of baptism and confession.

In sum, using two key images, “gird your loins” and “light your lamps”, Jesus teaches the ideal way to prepare for the end of the world. First, practice chastity, and second, go frequently to confession. And when we are thus prepared we can pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father with great confidence and even joyful expectation. Because when we say “Thy kingdom come” we will desire the end of the world, not dread it.

Praised be Jesus Christ!