ALL IS VANITY

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Thursday 25 September 2014.

ALL IS VANITY

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “All is vanity! For all his toil under the sun, what does man gain from it?” (Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 1:2-11)

Reflection. This cry of weariness describes what we feel sometimes! What’s the point of it all? It can become a serious condition leading to drugs and other ‘escapes’ and, saddest of all, it can lead to suicide. In spiritual terms we call it desolation, an experience when God seems absent and we feel empty and down. Nothing has a taste anymore; prayer, the Eucharist, all seem beyond me. Perhaps it is a puzzle why this book found its way into the bible! True, the passage above is not the whole message of the book and there are brighter spots. But perhaps too the writer is deliberately making things sound gloomy so as to set himself up to bounce back. This is not the whole reality. God is at work. There is a meaning to our lives. It may be obscured at times but it is there. It is real.

Prayer. Lord Jesus, teach us to live in trust even when we feel down and discouraged. You sometimes withdraw to help us gain greater knowledge of ourselves  Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ