“Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity,” says Quoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes. If life is nothing but a vanity, why should we have faith? Quoheleth looked at his world, and saw that not every act of goodness was rewarded. He saw that evil sometimes went unpunished. A person could be tempted to give up on the world, to give up on God, to live a self-centered and hedonistic life, to live for today and to forget about the consequences of tomorrow.
Quoheleth looked at the ancient world in which he lived, and saw that it was essentially a changeless world. The environment, culture, and lifestyles essentially remained the same from generation to generation. Was there nothing we could do for things to change?
Perhaps the author of Ecclesiastes is not trying to depress us, but rather to challenge us to a deeper, more profound spiritual quest. We will never be able to master the world, to explain the mysteries of life, to justify our own existence. We are faced with a choice: to either become self-centered and cynical, or to reach out to God. By turning to God, we do not turn our backs on the world. But but following a life of faith, we will look at the world differently. Through the eyes of our faith, we trust in the power of God, we turn to God as the master of the world, the one who can explain the mysteries of life and justify our existence. Through our eyes of faith, through our faith in God, we hold that life does hold meaning and purpose, that it is not a vanity.
Many of us face the same questions that Quoheleth asked. We see so many in the world around us who still find life meaningless. Rather than giving up, we can choose the path of faith, a choice we must be willing to make each day, a choice we make through our words, our thoughts, and our actions, in choosing God and the life of our Catholic faith.
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