Sic transit gloria mundi

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Recently, a social commentator, whose podcast I follow, drew my attention to the link between culture of death which underlies two increasingly normalised evils of our times - abortion and euthanasia - and two prevalent philosophical positions, nihilism and hedonism. A simple explanation for nihilism is that it is the position which perceives life as purposeless and meaningless, whereas hedonism regards personal satisfaction and self-fulfilment as the only criteria to measure the worth of anything. It is interesting how we see these two modern destructive positions in our first reading and the Gospel.

The first reading taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes opens with these iconic words: “Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!” In modern English, the word vanity means an excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, or achievements. But it may also refer to something that lacks value, that is worthless or trivial. This is the most ancient meaning of the term, and the one that is intended in this passage. This is not the kind of message that you would expect from holy scriptures. In fact, the Book in its entirety is somewhat discouraging as the author constantly emphasises the vanity or futility of created things. If you didn’t know better, you would actually suspect that the author is your typical text-book nihilist who has come to this cynical outlook after having lived a life of hedonism which ended in shattered dreams and failed projects.

The author, presumably King Solomon who had acquired great wealth and fame and enjoyed countless pleasures, waxes lyrical as he dismantles the purpose of his youthful pursuit of knowledge, riches and pleasure, which doesn’t seem to bring him any closer to the elusive goal of happiness and personal achievement. If one were to just confine our reading to this bleak rumination of an obviously disillusioned man, we too would be sucked into a quagmire of despair. If all efforts at striving are futile, why bother at all?

The doom-and-gloom conclusion the Preacher reaches at the end of our reading, points in two directions. First, it reminds us of what this Sunday’s Gospel teaches: that you can’t take it with you. No matter how much wealth you accumulate in this life, it will die with you. In the end, there’s no rich or poor person after death. Second, Ecclesiastes brings us face to face with the deepest questions that we should be asking, struggling with and seeking answers for. In fact, the Catholic philosopher, Peter Kreeft, says that Ecclesiastes is the question to which the whole Bible responds. He says, “It is divine revelation precisely in being the absence of divine revelation. It is like the silhouette of the rest of the Bible.”

But thank God, our lectionary matches and juxtaposes this reading with both the second reading and the Gospel. Read in the light of these two other passages, Ecclesiastes is not nearly as bleak as it may seem at first glance. It is a necessary meditation, nevertheless - for how can one learn to appreciate the invigorating power of light unless we have experienced the alienating pain of darkness? How could we hunger for the endless joys of heaven unless we have seen or tasted the pains of hell? From that low point of desperation, we can turn to God, seeking the answers to our longing for meaning in His Word, in His Son, in His Sacraments. We will find that life is far from the nihilistic meaninglessness the Preacher finds. Instead, we are made for a beautiful, eternal communion with God where we will find our ultimate fulfillment.

The message of the Preacher in the first reading seems to find a striking parallel with the parable of the Foolish Rich Man in the Gospel, but with one significant difference. The most significant difference is that Jesus Christ, Divine Wisdom and not just another wise philosopher, could speak authoritatively of a future life with our Heavenly Father while the authors of the Old Testament books, including the supposedly wise philosopher king who authored Ecclesiastes, could not. Whereas the Preacher seems to be mulling and venting over the perplexity of life, which our Lord also reiterates in His parable, our Lord and St Paul in the second reading are actually stressing that we should be concentrating more on our eternal destiny. As St Paul wisely exhorts us: “Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth.”

The Gospel gives us not just one but two examples of a disordered relationship with material goods, one drawn from real life and the other, a parable. They share a common theme, namely, a disproportionate attachment to material things upends one's sense of tranquillity and order, and can misdirect one away from Eternal Life. In the first instance, a man approaches the Lord with a complaint that he is being treated unjustly in the matter of an inheritance. It is easy to empathise with his dilemma as we all know how it feels to be the victim of injustice.

Rather than solving this man's problem, our Lord deflects it with a parable. It is the story of the "rich fool." The Biblical meaning of "fool" is one who rebels against God or who has forgotten Him. The man of the parable is so concerned with maintaining his wealth that there is no place for God in his life. He will die that night, and despite his possessions, he will appear before God empty-handed. This is why St Paul in the second reading exhorts us that “you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god" (Col 3:5). Our true treasure is being a child of God, having received new life in Christ. In the end, “there is only Christ: He is everything and He is in everything”. All other treasures are transitory and barren, and will one day fade away.

As foolish men surround themselves with trophies of their achievements and build monuments in honour of their conquests, wise rulers throughout history have often taken care to surround themselves with salutary reminders of their own frailty and the transitory nature of power. The Pope is no different. There is a Latin expression that was once spoken at the coronation of Popes, “Sic transit gloria mundi”, which means, “Thus passes the glory of the world.” The last Pope to have heard it would be Pope St John XXIII.

As the new pontiff was carried around St. Peter’s Basilica, sitting in his sedia gestatoria, his portable throne, the procession with all its pomp and pageantry, would stop in three different places. At each stop, the priest, holding a burning flax, would chant to the pope “Pater Sancte, sic transit gloria mundi!,” “Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world,” reminding him—and the rest of the Church—of the transitory nature of worldly honour and glory. So that amidst all the pomp owed to the dignity of their sacred office, the Supreme Pontiffs might not forget the humble origins of the papacy in the Galilean fisherman, who betrayed Christ out of fear of the washerwoman. Everything in this life passes away — only God remains (as St Teresa reminds us in her prayer), and because of this reason, only He is worth struggling towards.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, heed the words of St Paul: “Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.”