Homily for Thursday, Week 25 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
25th Week of Ordinary Time

Sept. 26, 2024
Eccl 1: 2-11
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.
“Nothing is new under the sun” (Eccl 1: 9).

Qoheleth isn’t impressed by the natural world.  The sun, the wind, the rivers, life and death just go on as they always have.  If he were around today, perhaps he’s see something different in nature:  melting glaciers, rising seas, more severe storms, totally different cycles of rain and drought.

But he’d still be right about human nature, about our restlessness, our desires, the emptiness of wealth and pleasure, and our mortality.

One big change, the biggest change, Qoheleth couldn’t even have imagined.  Jesus Christ has changed everything.

We keep Jesus’ memory of old (cf. 1:11); but he’s not only of old.  He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, as the Letter to the Hebrews says (13:8).  He lives.

And living, he preserves the memory, the reality, of all who belong to him.  The dying thief begged Jesus to “remember” him when he came into his kingdom (Luke 23:42).  In Christ there’s remembrance of the men and women of old—not only of the saints in our prayer books but of every one of us as well. 

In Christ everything has changed because God has entered our history and our lives and made all things new. 

“See, this is new!” (Eccl 1:10).  Jesus has re-connected us with the source of all life and goodness.  There may not be profit from all our labors under the sun (1:3), but there’s eternal profit from belonging to Christ.  He profits us by transforming us from mortal sinners into images of himself, who at the daybreak of resurrection on the Last Day will fill us with his kindness for eternal days (cf. Ps 90:14).