Homily for Thursday, Week 25 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
Week 25 of Ordinary Time

Sept. 25, 2026
Ps 90: 3-6, 12-14, 17
Eccl 1: 2-11
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

“You turn man back to dust” (Ps 90: 3).

Psalm 90 reminds us, if we need the reminder, that our days are limited, and their meaning depends on our “wisdom of heart” (90:12) and the kindness of the Lord (90:14).

Wisdom of heart helps us to see the world around us in perspective.  It seems unchanging and permanent, and our labor has little impact on it, dust that we are.  What we do and what we say vanishes quickly.  Even the great—or those who think they’re great, like Herod Antipas—are perplexed (Luke 9:7-9) if they ground themselves on the world around us.  All of it is vanity; our lives are short.

The kindness of the Lord, however, enables us to “number our days aright” (Ps 90:12), to number them not by counting them out but by using them profitably.  Qoheleth asks skeptically, “What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun?” (Eccl 1:3).  That depends on what we labor at, for whom we labor.  If for ourselves, if aiming at being remembered (1:11) as great in fame or fortune, then yes, “All things are vanity!” (1:2).

If, however, our aim is to be remembered by the Lord, then “the work of our hands” prospers because we work for him; human labor, toiling under the sun, draws a profit (1:3).  The Lord advises us, “Store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves break in and steal” (Matt 6:20).  In heaven our eyes will be fully satisfied, with seeing, our ears with hearing (cf. Eccl 1:8) because we’ll see and hear him who made us to be happy with him, with him who is “the way, the truth, and the life” of the human race (Gospel verse).