All But Him is Vanity

All speech is labored; there is nothing one can say. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear satisfied with hearing. // Ecclesiastes 1:8

Whenever I read today’s First Reading (see Ecclesiastes 1:2-11), I’m reminded of a time during my college years when I attended Mass in a different city and the lector had a penchant for drama. The proclamation of this reading from the Ecclesiates was so vividly given, with the melodic crescendos of Ian McCellan delivering a Shakespearean monologue, that my friends and I couldn’t help but giggle the whole way through. 

But I can’t blame that lector for leaning into the fabulous poetry of these words. They contain the beauty of the written—and performed—word, but also the profundity of fundamental human experience. None of us have to be very old to understand that so much of the world around us, although repetitive and rhythmic, is also completely out of our control. We do not control the sun rising and setting, the direction and strength of the winds, nor the river’s flow. Nor does the created world, as marvelous and vast as it is, satisfy our hearts. And neither do the accomplishments of human history provide our souls with purpose and fulfillment. 

We as human beings are not satisfied with our own achievement, our own beauty, the accomplishments and success of the civilization we live in, or the world around us. We are meant for more, and we all contain within that longing and questioning that is impossible to find an answer to in ourselves or the natural world. We can’t escape this existential pull, just as the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes could not. 

We are unsatisfied by these things because we were created for a relationship with our Creator, Who wants us to know and communicate with Him intimately. We can keep distracting ourselves from that truth by looking elsewhere for happiness and answers, but it is really only God, Who made us for Himself, Who will give us the satisfaction our souls desire. 

Ask the Lord to speak to your heart and strip away all desires that do not lead you to Him.