Homily for 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
18th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 5, 2007

Eccl 1: 2; 2: 21-23
Col 3: 1-5, 9-11
Luke 12: 13-21
Christian Brothers, Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

I celebrated a parish Mass this morning, but there was a mission appeal by an outside speaker.  The congregation at Iona College includes laity. 

“What profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun?” (Eccl 2: 22).

The Worship of Mammon (Evelyn DeMorgan)

Modern technology is supposed to have made our work easier, faster, more efficient:  household appliances, transportation, communication, etc.  So, theoretically, we ought to have more leisure time, more time to connect with family and friends, with God and nature, more time for literature, the arts, whatever deepens our humanity, more time to “think of what is above, not of what is on earth” (Col 3:2).

It doesn’t seem to work out that way, does it?  We need fast food and Chinese take-out because our lives have become even faster-paced.  Our children’s sports and music lessons leave them no time for themselves; or they delve into video games and the Web unendingly and don’t interact socially.  We need instant gratification, and our attention spans have shrunk to a bit more than nanoseconds—a word none of us had even heard of 10 years ago.  One presidential election has barely ended before the next campaign begins.

“What profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun?”  The author of Ecclesiastes, who calls himself Qoheleth or “the Preacher,” was searching for meaning in life, searching for God’s ways with humanity.  He didn’t understand God’s purposes, but he could see that working long, hard, and wisely and amassing wealth didn’t make people happy, didn’t make them secure, didn’t put them at ease.  So much that we spend our lives pursuing, worrying about, or trying to avoid—it’s all vanity, emptiness, chasing the wind (1:17).  “All one’s days sorrow and grief is his occupation” (2:23).  Achievement, wealth, fame, pleasure—Qoheleth considers all of these and finds they come up short as the answer to life’s ultimate questions.  Soon enuf we pass from the scene and leave our property to others, leave our reputations behind us.  “This also is vanity” (2:21,23).

When Ecclesiastes was written, probably in the 3d century B.C., the Jews didn’t yet have the insight that God will raise up our bodies at the end of time or even that our souls are immortal, that there will be an eternal reward or punishment for us, according as we have sought God and his purposes, or not.  And therein is the answer to Qoheleth’s questions.

Jesus points us in that direction, e.g., with his parable of the rich man suddenly called to judgment:  “You fool, this nite your life will be demanded of you” (Luke 12:20).  Someone—maybe it was Garrison Keillor—has observed that he’s never seen an armored car following a hearse.  You really can’t take it with you:  neither wealth nor fame nor reputation.  We go into eternity with ourselves:  our lives, the record of our words, deeds, thoughts, relationships, above all our relationship with God.

Which is what we religious are all about.  We’re not teachers or social workers or guidance counselors or ministers of the sacraments 1st, but people in a relationship with God.  “The essential contribution that the Church expects from consecrated persons is much more in the order of being than of doing,” Pope Benedict wrote in his recent apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist.[1]

Our lives are, 1st of all, centered on God and eternity, not on the accumulation of wealth or the enjoyment of the fine things of life (cf. Luke 12:19) or building a reputation or “fulfilling ourselves.”  Whatever we do or say or think is directed toward Christ, measured against the standard of Christian discipleship.  At least that’s what we profess to strive for.  By God’s grace we’ve been privileged over the years to see confreres/sisters who’ve striven in that direction very well.  We’ve lived with saints who very well “hid their lives with Christ in God” (Col 3:3), who stored up great treasures in heaven instead of on earth (cf. Luke 12:21).

Our lives are, in the 2d place, witnesses.  By our chastity, poverty, and obedience; by our lives among our brothers/sisters in a communion of love, forgiveness, mutual concern; by our commitment to daily conversion—we testify to the world that Qoheleth is right:  “All things are vanity!” (1:2)  A thousand years are a blip of time.  Human generations pass “like the changing grass, which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades” (Ps 90:5-6).  Only God is eternal.  Only God matters—God and all who have been recreated in Christ, “made new selves, renewed in the image of the Creator” (Col 3:10).  Our lives are evidence not just of the emptiness of pleasure, of all material things, and of our egos, but they are also evidence of the glory for which we hope, for which we long, “when Christ our life will appear, and we too will appear with him in glory” (cf. 3:4).

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        [1] Sacramentum caritatis, 81.