From Vanity to Sanity... towards Sanctity

WORD 2day: Thursday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 26, 2024 - Ecclesiastes 1:2-11; Luke 9: 7-9

TINNUTS... I remember this acronym from our younger times, when we were used to repeat it often with a sigh: the expansion of it is, There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.The first reading speaks of vanities in life. Labour, dreams, experiences, senses...everything is a vanity if they are not taken in the right perspective. Is that not true? Add to this list, our self glory and egocentrism, and the list would become more perfect.

The Gospel today presents to us a personification of vanities, Herod! Herod had every opportunity to realise the vanity with which he was living. But he made no use of them, he even put an end to them. That would certainly affect him all his life. That is why the Gospel says, "he kept saying, I beheaded John." 

We are more than aware of the vanities which surround us today. Be it personally, or socially, or globally, there are any number of vanities. But there are also ample opportunities offered for each of us to realise these vanities of life and to do away with them. There is a strange tradition in our Christian Spirituality that many ancient saints are depicted with a skul in the vicinity... the reason was simply this - to remind us about an essential journey that we need to make, all of us. 

The call is a journey of realisation - from vanity to sanity... while that is the ordinary journey that each of us is expected to make, there is an extraordinary journey we are challenged to embark as disciples of Christ: not just from vanity to sanity, but further towards sanctity!