In today’s First Reading Qoheleth invites us to consider the meaning of all the moments in our life: our birth and death, our up moments and our down moments, times of change, times of adversity, times of joy, and times of sadness. There is a time for everything, and the Lord has established that, not only so that there may be some order in life, but also to make our thoughts turn to whether anything is timeless, anything is eternal.
Eternity is not just a mental construction that we extrapolate from contemplating finite, temporal situations. Eternity is where we find God, at least until he became man, and even then he bridges the gap for us between time and eternity and consoles us with the certainty that one day all our toil will end, having achieved its purpose.
Many people today “live for the weekend”; let’s ask Our Lord to help us live for eternity.
Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1–11; Psalm 144:1b, 2a–c, 3–4; Luke 9:18–22. See also 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, 25th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday, and 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.
