18th Sunday
Pre-Convention Mass: Knights of Columbus Board, Officers
St. John Paul II National Shrine
Washington, D.C.
August 2, 2025
Vanity of Vanities
Today’s reading from Ecclesiastes has a sense of futility about it. “Vanities of vanities”, Qoheleth cries, as if to mock the fruits of human labor. We work hard, mustering knowledge and skill for our life’s work. We put “sweat equity” into our decisions, plans, and projects. Yet, who knows what becomes of all we accomplish? And what really changes as the result of our hard work and anxiety?
Let us ask: Are we like the doomed Sisyphus, the mythical King of Ephyra, who was condemned to Hades for his slyness and defiance of Zeus? His punishment? Eternally to roll a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down. Sisyphus is thus immortalized as a symbol of human futility. Some, like Albert Camus, used Sisyphus to symbolize the absurdity of life.
Well, we all have moments when our daily tasks seem futile and when life itself can seem absurd. Dealing with a colleague who undoes what we try to do. Repeating the same task again and again with the same dreary results. Wondering what will become of all we have done and all we own. In capturing this very real human experience, Qoheleth, the teacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes, tees up a question, a question to which Jesus Christ alone can give the answer.
The Answer Is Christ
The answer Christ gives unfolds in two stages in today’s liturgy, first in the reading from Luke’s Gospel & then in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. In the Gospel, Jesus is asked by someone in the crowd to act as if he were a probate judge in a contested will. That’s man’s overriding concern is to get every dime coming to him. Jesus wisely declines to intervene but uses the occasion to instruct the crowd and us to avoid greed in all its forms. “Though one may be rich,” he says, “one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Never one to let truth remain an airy abstraction, Jesus goes on to tell the story of the man who amassed so much that he needed larger barns to store it all. Thinking he had “made it”, he planned a pleasant existence, only to have his life cut short by God who demanded an accounting. Jesus draws out the moral of his parable: those who “store up riches for themselves are not rich in what matters to God.” And that is the first part of our answer to the question posed by Qoheleth: The Son of God who emptied himself of glory teaches us that a life lived only for oneself is indeed futile and absurd. Only a life generously lived for God and for others is a life truly worth living.
In Colossians, St. Paul provides part two of our answer to Qoheleth’s question, where he says, “If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. [He adds:] Think about what is above, not of what is on earth . . . .” Paul says that once we gaze in faith on Christ seated at the Father’s right hand, we will find in him the revelation of the Father’s love, and in that love, we will discover our authentic human dignity, the dignity of our work, and the surpassing goal of everything that we do in this world, namely, to claim our status & to live as the beloved sons and daughters of God. In Christ, our life and work are transformed; we are made new. Everything we say and do is endowed with new meaning and importance. So it’s clear: Paul is not advising us to keep our head in the clouds and ignore what’s going on around us. After all, he worked harder than anyone else, and experienced anxiety over the Christian communities he founded. No, Paul isn’t advising us to position ourselves above the fray but rather to find our transcendent dignity and destiny within the fray.
The Ultimate Meaning of Our Daily Labors
What, then, does this mean for our daily work: our efforts to provide for our families, to achieve that modicum of security Blessed Michael sought for his Knights, to find joy and to take pride in our day job and in our work for the Knights? In response to that question, let me pass along two pieces of advice, one from Pope Benedict XVI and the other from Pope St. John Paul II:
Commenting on today’s reading from Colossians, Pope Benedict said that “we must keep our feet on the ground but our eyes fixed in heaven” – a good rule of thumb for us who have not yet attained our eternal reward. For his part, Pope St. John Paul II linked the “sweat and toil” of daily work to discipleship. Daily work offers the possibility of our sharing in the work Christ came to do. “In work,” he said, “thanks to the light of the Resurrection of Christ, we always find [in our work] a glimmer of new life, of the new good, as if it were the announcement of the new heavens and the new earth” (LE 27).
This ought be true of all we do for our families, in our daily work, and in our service to the Knights of Columbus. This is how, when, and where we are to live as disciples and do the Lord’s work. We lose our way, even if we are attempting something noble, when we do it for ourselves and for vainglory. Then it is that work becomes frustrating & our accomplishments evanescent. But when we allow ourselves to be formed after Christ’s mind and heart, by absorbing through prayer his teaching and the meaning of his deeds, by feeding on his Body and Blood, by allowing him to claim us absolutely, then no set back, no frustration should derail us, and no accomplishment should turn our head, except in one direction: “Towards Christ, the Redeemer of Man.” Vivat Jesus!