20140925 PESSIMISM OR REALISM TOWARDS LIFE
First
reading
Ecclesiastes
1:2-11 ©
Vanity
of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. Vanity of vanities. All is
vanity! For all his toil, his toil under the sun, what does man gain by it?
A generation goes, a generation comes, yet
the earth stands firm for ever. The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place
it speeds and there it rises. Southward goes the wind, then turns to the north;
it turns and turns again; back then to its circling goes the wind. Into the sea
all the rivers go, and yet the sea is never filled, and still to their goal the
rivers go. All things are wearisome. No man can say that eyes have not had
enough of seeing, ears their fill of hearing. What was will be again; what has
been done will be done again; and there is nothing new under the sun. Take
anything of which it may be said, ‘Look now, this is new.’ Already, long before
our time, it existed. Only no memory remains of earlier times, just as in times
to come next year itself will not be remembered.
Psalm
Psalm
89:3-6,12-14,17 ©
O
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
You
turn men back to dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To
your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
O
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
You
sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs up in the
morning.
In
the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.
O
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
Make
us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord,
relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
O
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
In
the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let
the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
O
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
Gospel
Acclamation Ps118:18
Alleluia,
alleluia!
Open
my eyes, O Lord, that I may consider
the
wonders of your law.
Alleluia!
Or Jn14:6
Alleluia,
alleluia!
I
am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord;
No
one can come to the Father except through me.
Alleluia!
Gospel Luke 9:7-9 ©
Herod
the tetrarch had heard about all that was being done by Jesus; and he was
puzzled, because some people were saying that John had risen from the dead,
others that Elijah had reappeared, still others that one of the ancient
prophets had come back to life. But Herod said, ‘John? I beheaded him. So who
is this I hear such reports about?’ And he was anxious to see Jesus.
PESSIMISM
OR REALISM TOWARDS LIFE
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: ECCLESIASTES 1:2-11; LUKE 9:7-9
http://www.universalis.com/20140925/mass.htm
Both readings of today
sound rather pessimistic. Both express undertones of regret,
disappointment and failure.
In the first reading,
Qoheleth offers us two reflections about the reality of life. On
one hand, there is the vanity of success. After all the years
hankering after wealth, the taste of success is flat. And so he said,
“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity! For all his toil, his toil under the sun, what
does man gain by it?” What do we gain? Are we really happy? Isn’t
it true that many of us seek to accumulate wealth and fame? The irony is
that after we have acquired so much wealth, we find that we do not need all
that money, or we cannot spend them as we are either too sick, too busy with
making more money or too old to do anything with it. This is true even
for those who seek power. To think that power and wealth can give us happiness
is a delusion. The more power and wealth we have, the more worries and
burdens we carry in trying to preserve our assets and position in life.
Secondly, history is a
cycle of ups and downs. Hence, despite all the effort and passion we
may put into changing and improving society and the Church, others will come and
undo all those years of hard work. Humanity does not seem to have
changed much. It is a cycle of progress and decadence, growth and decay,
success and failure, peaks and valleys. And so it seems, for as Qoheleth
remarks, ‘No man can say that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their
fill of hearing. What was will be again; what has been done will be done again;
and there is nothing new under the sun. Take anything of which it may be said,
“Look now, this is new.”’ If we think that what we are doing is new, it
is because we have forgotten our past. Yes, he said, “Already, long
before our time, it existed. Only no memory remains of earlier times, just as
in times to come next year itself will not be remembered.”
Perhaps many of us might
not have come to this stage of our lives and therefore do not understand what
Qoheleth is saying. Only those who have arrived at the prime of
their career in life can identify themselves with him. Therein also lies
the danger that we may be so preoccupied with our goals and achievements that
we fail to see all these in perspective. So focused are we on making our
mark in society that we often do so at the expense of losing our loved ones,
our spouse and family. By the time we arrive, it would be too late to
regret. To know that we have sweated our blood for nothing can be so
disheartening.
Does it mean then that
we live a carefree life?
Does it mean that work and human achievements are irrelevant and
meaningless? Of course not! By failing to live responsibly, we too cannot
find fulfillment because we fail to reach our potential and maximize what has
been given to us. This will only cause us to regret, like King Herod when
he “heard about all that was being done by Jesus; and he was puzzled, because
some people were saying that John had risen from the dead, others that Elijah
had reappeared, still others that one of the ancient prophets had come back to
life.” And his conscience pricked him, as he had beheaded John.
Herod’s irresponsibility and the lack of fidelity to himself haunted him.
So what then should be
the right attitude to life? The psalmist invites us to recognize the shortness of
life when he prayed, “For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday,
now that it is past, or as a watch of the night. Teach us to number our days
aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” Truly, our life on this earth
is short. We must therefore make the most of it while we are still here
on this earth.
We must not ask the
wrong questions, as Qoheleth did when he said, “For all his toil, his toil
under the sun, what does man gain by it?” Life must not be seen in terms
of what we can get out of it, but what we can put into it. It is not in
getting that we find fulfillment, but in giving. As we give our time,
resources and energy to what we are doing for the earth and humanity, we find
ourselves, our identity and self-worth. If life is seen from the
perspective of service and love, then mere temporal or monetary rewards are
inconsequential, because the joy of service and love will give us more than
sufficient satisfaction, compared with any earthly rewards we can receive.
Secondly, we should not
simply work for this world, but do so in the light of eternity. We
must not think that salvation is found in this world. Rather, salvation
is from God. We do not live only for this life but for the life that is to
come. In this life, we make use of the opportunities to perfect our love
for God and for our fellowmen. When we grow in love and virtues, we are
already preparing ourselves for the new heaven and the new earth. Indeed,
through the exercise of love here on earth, we will learn how to love so that
at the end of time, the Kingdom of love, justice and truth will prevail.
For now, instead of
worrying too much about the future, let us cooperate with His grace and trust
in His Divine wisdom. What is important is that each of us must fulfill
his or her vocation on this earth. It is fidelity to our
vocation in life, which is the vocation of love and service that, in the final
analysis, will give us true fulfillment and joy in this life. So long
as we do not see life in terms of an accumulation of achievements and pursuit
of one goal after another, then life will not be lived in vain.
Whilst it might be true
that life seems to be a routine and a cycle, the routine does not make life
burdensome; it is when we go through the motions of life and events without
being in them fully, that makes life drudgery. In the words of Martin
Heidegger, the existentialist philosopher, there is a great difference between
being and being there. Life is not merely about existing, but
living. Those who exist are simply being there, but those who live their
lives authentically by living fully, enjoying whatever they are doing, find
themselves.
The truth is that happiness
is not to be found at the end, but happiness is already ours when we begin to
live life authentically. The biggest mistake is
to think that we can be
happy only when we arrive. Nay, the arrival only signals that it is time
to begin again and move to another level of growth, but the arriving fills us
with meaning and enthusiasm. Yes, following the psalmist, all we can do
is to live each day fully, enjoying all that comes each day, the joys, the
sorrows, the challenges, the friendships, the love and the pain of
growth. Like the psalmist, after doing all that we can, we commend
everything to the Lord saying, “Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we
may shout for joy and gladness all our days. Prosper the work of our hands for
us! Prosper the work of our hands!”
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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