Recently, Fr Bonaventure issued a notice on my behalf informing parishioners of my medical condition after the fall I had sustained at an overseas conference. Immediately, some persons who had received the notice, subjected it to a fact-check verification using AI (artificial intelligence). I found the irony quite amusing. People would rather believe AI, a non-human programming based on data input and algorithms, than an actual human person, who got the information directly from the horses' mouth - me!
Yes, there is certainly a quiet irony in our age. We have built machines that can process more information in a second than a human mind could absorb in a lifetime. Without human ingenuity, these machines would never have been built but without these machines, man would not have been able to discover new knowledge that would have been beyond our normal reach.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of AI, now famously rebranded by Trump as SI - Super Intelligence! They write poems, diagnose diseases, predict markets, compose your presentation and even attempt to mimic prayer. And some priests have even resorted to AI to compose their homilies, which is a blessing, since the quality has exponentially improved! Yet the first reading this Sunday opens with a different kind of knowledge: “Wisdom is bright and does not grow dim. By those who love her she is readily seen and found by those who look for her.” This is not data. This is not computational power. This is the wisdom that sits by the gate at dawn, waiting for the one who rises early to meet her. It is personal, relational, and ultimately divine.
Such wisdom cannot be explained logically. It has to be demonstrated visually. And this is what we see in today’s Gospel which presents us with the parable of the ten bridesmaids —five wise, five foolish—waiting for the Bridegroom. Note the uniqueness of this parable from the other teachings and parables of the Lord about the end-times, all of which exhorts vigilance or watchfulness. But in this parable, all ten bridesmaids, both the sensible and foolish, fall asleep. The difference between the two categories is not intelligence or social status. The difference is the extra supply of oil. The wise have brought extra oil; the foolish have not. When the cry goes up at midnight, “The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him!”, only those who have prepared can enter the wedding feast. The door is shut on the unprepared. It feels like a cruel and harsh ending, but it really isn’t. The ending depends on whether one is prepared or not, and not on whether they had remained vigilant till the arrival of the Bridegroom.
Although the Bridegroom is delayed and they had no knowledge of the exact time and hour of his arrival; his coming is certain. The foolish ones cannot excuse their own carelessness and unpreparedness by putting the blame squarely on the bridegroom’s delay. They were only prepared for a short wait and dismissed the real possibility of his delay. For this mistake, they had only themselves to blame. Readiness cannot be borrowed at the last moment. You are either ready or you are not. It is a personal choice which no one can substitute for you.
In our time, artificial or super intelligence tempts us to believe that preparation is a matter of better algorithms, faster processing, more complete datasets. We seem to have become more efficient but at the same time, grown lazy and careless. We imagine that if we can only gather enough information, we will never be caught unready. Yet Pope Leo XIV, in his most recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, reminds us of a deeper truth: “In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanisation, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendour of which no machine can ever replace.” Our reasoning, our ability to think, is what makes us human. With such amazing thinking machines who do all the hard thinking on our behalf, have we become less human since man is defined as a rational being?
The truth of the matter is that no machine can love. No machine can repent. No machine can keep vigil in the night of the soul, trimming the lamp of faith with the oil of charity, prayer, and fidelity. The wisdom of the sensible bridesmaids is not a product of superior calculation. It is the fruit of a heart that has learned to wait, to hope, and to love beyond the horizon of immediate results. It is the wisdom that knows the Bridegroom’s delay is itself a gift—an invitation to deeper trust, to a deeper conversion, to a deeper faith.
Pope Leo’s revolutionary document, Magnifica Humanitas, uses an imagery from the patron of his order, St Augustine, and places before us a decisive choice: “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” The Tower of Babel is the dream of a self-sufficient humanity that needs neither God nor neighbour—only more powerful tools. We feel more emboldened, more empowered, more invincible as we build faster and more powerful machines to think for us. Our greatest mistake is that in our hubris we have forgotten that the city of God is built by those who keep oil in their lamps: the oil of mercy, of fidelity to the small duties of daily life, of silent prayer that no chatbot can generate, of love that refuses to treat persons as data points.
The foolish bridesmaids are not condemned for lacking intelligence. They are shut out because they treated readiness as something that could be improvised when the moment arrived. In an age of AI, the danger is subtler: we may come to believe that wisdom itself can be outsourced, that the oil of preparedness can be downloaded, that the Bridegroom’s coming can be predicted by predictive analytics. But the Gospel is clear: “You know neither the day nor the hour.” The only adequate preparation is to live already as the Bridegroom has arrived, that the wedding feast is underway—keeping the lamp of faith burning with the oil of a life ordered toward Christ.
So, my brothers and sisters, let us not be dazzled by the brilliance of our machines. Let us rather seek the wisdom that is resplendent and unfading, the wisdom that sits by the gate at dawn. Let us keep oil in our lamps—not the oil of mere information, but the oil of charity, of sacramental life, of quiet fidelity. For the Bridegroom is coming. And when He comes, no algorithm will open the door. Only the heart that has learned to wait in love will enter the feast. May the Lord grant us that wisdom which surpasses all human knowledge—and which no artificial intelligence will ever possess. Amen.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of AI, now famously rebranded by Trump as SI - Super Intelligence! They write poems, diagnose diseases, predict markets, compose your presentation and even attempt to mimic prayer. And some priests have even resorted to AI to compose their homilies, which is a blessing, since the quality has exponentially improved! Yet the first reading this Sunday opens with a different kind of knowledge: “Wisdom is bright and does not grow dim. By those who love her she is readily seen and found by those who look for her.” This is not data. This is not computational power. This is the wisdom that sits by the gate at dawn, waiting for the one who rises early to meet her. It is personal, relational, and ultimately divine.
Such wisdom cannot be explained logically. It has to be demonstrated visually. And this is what we see in today’s Gospel which presents us with the parable of the ten bridesmaids —five wise, five foolish—waiting for the Bridegroom. Note the uniqueness of this parable from the other teachings and parables of the Lord about the end-times, all of which exhorts vigilance or watchfulness. But in this parable, all ten bridesmaids, both the sensible and foolish, fall asleep. The difference between the two categories is not intelligence or social status. The difference is the extra supply of oil. The wise have brought extra oil; the foolish have not. When the cry goes up at midnight, “The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him!”, only those who have prepared can enter the wedding feast. The door is shut on the unprepared. It feels like a cruel and harsh ending, but it really isn’t. The ending depends on whether one is prepared or not, and not on whether they had remained vigilant till the arrival of the Bridegroom.
Although the Bridegroom is delayed and they had no knowledge of the exact time and hour of his arrival; his coming is certain. The foolish ones cannot excuse their own carelessness and unpreparedness by putting the blame squarely on the bridegroom’s delay. They were only prepared for a short wait and dismissed the real possibility of his delay. For this mistake, they had only themselves to blame. Readiness cannot be borrowed at the last moment. You are either ready or you are not. It is a personal choice which no one can substitute for you.
In our time, artificial or super intelligence tempts us to believe that preparation is a matter of better algorithms, faster processing, more complete datasets. We seem to have become more efficient but at the same time, grown lazy and careless. We imagine that if we can only gather enough information, we will never be caught unready. Yet Pope Leo XIV, in his most recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, reminds us of a deeper truth: “In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanisation, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendour of which no machine can ever replace.” Our reasoning, our ability to think, is what makes us human. With such amazing thinking machines who do all the hard thinking on our behalf, have we become less human since man is defined as a rational being?
The truth of the matter is that no machine can love. No machine can repent. No machine can keep vigil in the night of the soul, trimming the lamp of faith with the oil of charity, prayer, and fidelity. The wisdom of the sensible bridesmaids is not a product of superior calculation. It is the fruit of a heart that has learned to wait, to hope, and to love beyond the horizon of immediate results. It is the wisdom that knows the Bridegroom’s delay is itself a gift—an invitation to deeper trust, to a deeper conversion, to a deeper faith.
Pope Leo’s revolutionary document, Magnifica Humanitas, uses an imagery from the patron of his order, St Augustine, and places before us a decisive choice: “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” The Tower of Babel is the dream of a self-sufficient humanity that needs neither God nor neighbour—only more powerful tools. We feel more emboldened, more empowered, more invincible as we build faster and more powerful machines to think for us. Our greatest mistake is that in our hubris we have forgotten that the city of God is built by those who keep oil in their lamps: the oil of mercy, of fidelity to the small duties of daily life, of silent prayer that no chatbot can generate, of love that refuses to treat persons as data points.
The foolish bridesmaids are not condemned for lacking intelligence. They are shut out because they treated readiness as something that could be improvised when the moment arrived. In an age of AI, the danger is subtler: we may come to believe that wisdom itself can be outsourced, that the oil of preparedness can be downloaded, that the Bridegroom’s coming can be predicted by predictive analytics. But the Gospel is clear: “You know neither the day nor the hour.” The only adequate preparation is to live already as the Bridegroom has arrived, that the wedding feast is underway—keeping the lamp of faith burning with the oil of a life ordered toward Christ.
So, my brothers and sisters, let us not be dazzled by the brilliance of our machines. Let us rather seek the wisdom that is resplendent and unfading, the wisdom that sits by the gate at dawn. Let us keep oil in our lamps—not the oil of mere information, but the oil of charity, of sacramental life, of quiet fidelity. For the Bridegroom is coming. And when He comes, no algorithm will open the door. Only the heart that has learned to wait in love will enter the feast. May the Lord grant us that wisdom which surpasses all human knowledge—and which no artificial intelligence will ever possess. Amen.
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