Ad Jesum per Mariam

The Book of Ecclesiastes Offers Us the Meaning of Life.

The Book of Ecclesiastes Offers Us the Meaning of Life The most important thing to know about time, is that it ends! It runs out for everyone and everything. It’s not infinite. It is measured. Time comes to an end. This is a fact of our faith. Time indeed comes to an end. Our first reading makes this point to us! When we are young, the possibilities seem endless. The reading tells us about the young man who is encouraged to feel and live life with energy. Step out into the river of time. But before you do, he is told: Think On The Lord! What an interesting statement. On one hand he is told to go and live his life. On the other hand, he is told you will not know what you are doing, until you turn to the Lord. The first reading gives us all an amazing advice on how to live our life when we are young . . . and when we are not so young. Hear more within the Homily! The Meaning of Life Further in the Homily, we are challenged with a question. All of the effort, all of the work, all our enjoying and all of our suffering, what good is it if it all comes to an end? What real value does anything really have if it comes to an end? The Book of Ecclesiastes offers the Meaning of Life. Hear more on this in the Homily! Listen to this Meditation Media. Listen to: The Book of Ecclesiastes Offers Us the Meaning of Life. ---------------------------- Gospel: Luke: 9: 43-45 First Reading: ECCL: 11: 9-12

Broadcast on:: 30 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

The Lord be with you, a reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. While they were all amazed at his every deed, Jesus said to his disciples, "Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men." But they did not understand the saying. Its meaning was hidden from them, so that they should not understand it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying. The Gospel of the Lord. The most important thing to know about time is that it ends. It runs out for everyone and for everything. Time is not infinite. Time is measured. Time is limited. Time comes to an end. This is, in fact, our faith, that time comes to an end, that there will be an ending of it. Our first reading is at great pains to make that point for us. It begins with an address to the young man in the strength of youth, the optimism of youth, the sense of possibilities and futures which seem so very many when we're young. And, in speaking to that young man, Goheleth, the author of the book, says, "Go, go, and be about what you're going to be about. Go and feel that energy and live it. Go and step out into that river of time and swim in it. But before you do that, think on the Lord." It's an interesting statement. On the one hand, that statement that says, "Go and live your life." And yet, on the other hand, the reminder, but you're not going to know what you're doing unless you turn first to the Lord. Otherwise, these possibilities are meaningless. Otherwise, all of this energy, all of this enthusiasm is going to run and get nowhere. And understand that even as you step out into the possibilities of life, you're also stepping out in the direction of the moment those possibilities end. And that's the other reminder. Get life right now while you're young. Get life right now. While you can enjoy it and embrace it because there's going to come the moment where that joy is difficult to find. Where that energy has spent, your limbs are flagging and tired, and you can't live like you used to. No, it's sobering. It's sobering. And yet, Cohèle's point is not to be depressing. Cohèle's point is also, is to be very, very clear that when one lives in a position of strength and possibility, one must recognize there's another side to that. And the strength is best used to get ready for that moment when strength isn't there again. And as he speaks, he speaks in this curiously beautiful and compelling way of things winding down. And he speaks about it both in individual terms, the marvelous image of the grinders being inactive because there aren't many of them anymore, and he's talking about teeth. Because sooner or later, we lose them. Sooner or later, we can't even eat the way we used to. When he speaks about the windows that look out into the world suddenly being dark and covered, he's speaking about the eye, which loses its ability, whether it's because of cataracts, glaucoma, or simply age or illness, to see the way it used to. He speaks as well of the way the eye gets darkened simply because when we're depressed and overwhelmed and frightened, even the bright colors of the world become dim as we look out at them. It's a remarkable series of images, this fact that I have energy now. But be careful if you're going to think you're going to live as if you always have it. Note the sobriety of that. It is not a matter of saying be grim and focused and afraid. More a matter of saying, don't live in a meaningless way. You know, that trite and tired expression, the meaning of life, is what runs through the book of Ecclesiastes. The fact that if all we do is look at things in worldly terms, all we see are things, however good they are, that come to an end. Timon does everything that Man tries to achieve. Time brings everything to a closure and time itself does, in fact, end. And so the question is, all of this effort, all of this work, all of this striving, all of this indulging, all of this enjoying, all of this suffering, what real value does any of it have if all it is is something that comes to an end? That's an important question. That is an important question. Our modern age doesn't want to face it. Our modern age wants to pretend as if everything can keep going. We become medically very brilliant at finding ways to extend and prolong life, and that's not a bad thing. And yet coupled with that, coupled with that is that sense that I don't want to face the limit. That is said, time is limited. Time comes to an end. And the sooner we recognize that, Cauhaus says, this is why he's speaking to the young person. It's not that he has nothing to sell to those of us who are older. He's saying the sooner we can recognize that, the sooner we learn that, the sooner we understand that we recognize, meaning in life is found in none of these things. It is only found from the one who gives life in the first place. And this is where the Almighty is different from us because our experience of life, our experience of time, conditions us in a very real way. However fulfilled any of us may ever feel in any given moment, we are always incomplete. Think of it right now, the experience of sitting here in the chair right now. You no longer have five minutes ago. That's gone. That's gone. You no longer have. I no longer have the beginning of this sermon. That's already passed. It's gone. It's being recorded so we have it there. But the moment, the moment of me speaking and you hearing, that's gone. That's already gone. I don't have that moment anymore. Neither do you. Look how fragile we are. How fragile we are. There is an element of who I am that is always passing away, always receding. And I can't cling to all of it. There is a passing on that is intrinsic to what it is to live in time. And yet I don't have five minutes from now yet either. Theoretically I have them because I'm assuming I'm going to be there. And yet those five minutes are not mine yet. They're on the way. I don't have tomorrow yet. I can plan for tomorrow. I can put a schedule together for tomorrow, but I don't have tomorrow. Note how incomplete I am. How incomplete we all are. There's something about me that passes away even as I live it, even as I experience it. And yet there is also something that's not mine yet that is on the way. But it's not mine yet. It's on the way. And I find that I stand in this narrow moment that passes even as I feel it. That's what it is to live in the present. Note how small the present is. As soon as I notice it, it's gone. As soon as I see it, as soon as I experience, it's already the past. Note how remarkable that is to be replaced with a new present, a new moment. God is not like this. God has no past that slips away from him and he no longer has. God has no element of a future that he has yet to experience. God is altogether now. God is the one who stands and lives outside of time. God is complete. God has no past. God has no future. God is the only one who's now, is full, total, complete, and unending. What a remarkable difference that is between the Lord and us. And this now is the other characteristic of time. Time is held within God. Time is held within God. Only God who begins it. Only God who will bring it to an end. Only God can direct its movement in such a way that the outcome is life and not destruction. Only God. And this is why then in our Psalm that's that marvelous line, teach us Lord to number our days rightly. A thousand of our years is like nothing to you, but so vast for us. But we are brief. We're like the grass that springs up in the morning and by evening under the sun, it's already spent in God. Our lives are brief. Everything unwinds, everything comes undone. Help us to remember that. That time is limited. Because it's the limit of time that gives it its real value for us. This moment that I experience and passes through me so quickly is where I live. Note how valuable that is. This moment that I have right now. And all of a sudden, as I say this, I'm thinking, I'm really regretting all the time I've wasted over my years. And you know, what an interesting expression to waste time. And yet that is the point that Cauhelith is making in the first reading. Whatever you do, don't waste it. Because when you do, you waste your life. When you do, you waste your living. He's not saying you have to be relentlessly zeroed in every moment. But what he is saying is, turn to the Lord and understand this. Understand the reality of who we are. Our lives are in fact brief. And yet within this brief span of our living, we work out where we will spend eternity. Eternity is not brief. Eternity has no end. Eternity is that never ending now of God. And that is where we are called. It is so easy to lose track of this. And that's why it is so wonderful that we have in the Scriptures these periodic reminders of this fundamental and basic reality of ourselves. It's a mystery that continues to unfold in our Gospel reading today. This, again, marvelously brief and mysterious passage where the Lord looks at his disciples and says, "Pay attention to what I tell you." And so we're thinking, here comes the big statement. Jesus is saying, listen up. I've got something to say and you absolutely need to hear it. Pay attention. And what does he say? The Son of Man is going to be handed over to men, period. You can't blame the disciples for not exactly understanding that. I am going to be handed over. My life is going to be placed in the hands of others. And that's true. But note the implication. There will be an ending. I will die. The strength that you see in me now is going to be brought low. I stand before you, the successful preacher. I stand before you, the Savior. But there's going to be a moment when weakness afflicts me and pain afflicts me. And there will be a moment that will come and in that moment I will breathe my last breath. That's what the Lord is saying. The disciples don't understand it. And like I said, one can't blame them. And why? Because how does life coming to an end have a value? How does that suffering? How does that hardship have a value? We spend our lives trying to avoid it. We spend our lives trying to get ready for it. But it's not something that we're looking for. It's not something that we desire. Note, note, and yet Jesus is saying there is a limit to my days here on earth physically with you. There is a limit because human life is in fact limited and limitless as I am as God. I am also man. And now the Lord is saying, and the lesson that Cohelith is trying to teach in the first reading has its fullness in what will happen with me. I am God who lives outside of time. And I have stepped into time. And in doing that, I have taken time onto myself. My life grows through the same seasons that yours knows. I move from weakness to strength to weakness again. I move from a beginning to an ending. Note how that brief movement across time is now no longer just our own. God Himself takes it. God makes it His own. This is what it is to say the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He takes this curious element of who we are. I'm not always all there, and yet Jesus mysteriously is. All of this He takes on to Himself. The disciples, because they haven't seen the outcome, are not going to understand. They can't yet. But there will come that moment. There will come that moment when the Lord rises from the grave never to die again. When the Lord takes our humanity out of the grave in rising from the dead and saying, "Man was not made to lose Himself in time." Man was not made simply to be undone by time. Man was not made. The world was not made. Simply to fall apart in futility. Man was made for more. And now we look at the Lord and we see that this brief movement through time, this marvelously brief passing of days which defines us has an eternal value, an eternal character. It doesn't simply come to an end with no meaning. Rather, its meaning is greater than we could have possibly imagined ourselves. Not how marvelous that is. That those moments that we have already lost, those moments that have not yet come to us but will arrive at some point, all of those things that fundamental incompleteness about us is heading someplace. And it's heading somewhere where, like God, we will be all together now. No past to lose, no future that's not here yet, but everything about us together, all at once, redeemed, glorious, and good. What a remarkable promise that is. And why? Because the past slips through our fingers like so many grains of sand, but not with Jesus. But the Lord holds in His hand He doesn't lose. What the Lord holds in His hand, no one robs from Him. And the Lord has taken our humanity to Himself, holds that humanity in His hand. And note how great the promise is for us. And that's why it is so absolutely wonderful here in this place. On this altar, that same Jesus Christ is going to be here. Note He still enters into time. To be with us. He will be on that altar here in these moments that we have right now. And He will come down from that altar and stand here waiting for us to get up and move toward Him. And as we do that, we have the marvelous symbolism that is present every time we receive Holy Communion. Our lives have a direction. We move toward the Lord. Whether we realize it or not, and go hell us great messages, better that you realize it. Better that you realize it so that you know the fundamental direction of your living. And we come forward and we move toward Him. And we stretch out our hands to Him. And here in this fragile now where we find ourselves, He places Himself in our hand. And note the Son of Man will be handed over to men. He is not simply speaking of His passion. He's not simply speaking of His death. He's speaking of the fact that He will hand Himself to you. He will hand Himself to me. He will hand Himself over, over and over and over again across the long roll of the centuries of time. He will do that. And time is now marked by the handing over of the Lord. A handing over that wins the victory of His resurrection and a handing over to us where we become filled with Him. Note how marvelous that is. And why? So that we can be lifted from this fragile time into that great eternal happiness that He has opened up and won for us. And we do that here. And every time we gather for this sacrament, every time we receive Holy Communion, we celebrate that reality in all truth, but also in anticipation. And we see something. This not yet that I am waiting for. This future that isn't quite mine yet is more than just the next five minutes. It's more than tomorrow. It's more than next week. It's more than next year. I am not complete because that great future, which is yet to arrive for me, is that eternal now of life with God. What a wonderful thing that is because man is only complete when he is with the Lord. Amen.