Word to the Wise
Thursday, September 25, 2014 - Thursday in the 25th Week in Ordinary Time
[Eccl/Qoh 1:2-11 and Luke 9:7-9]What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. [Ecc.]
Qoheleth [the author of Ecclesiastes] would not be a good candidate for membership in the Optimists club! His little book is soaked in a kind of pessimism, but it still has its lyrical moments, as we will see on Friday. We have inherited a number of expressions from him, one of which appears in today's passage: "Nothing is new under the sun."
I don't hear that saying as often as I used to. Apparently the revolution in communications has drowned it out. Apple and Samsung are proclaiming new things under the sun every day! Medical science, especially the genetics field, proclaims "new and exciting" advances in every Sunday supplement.
And yet, as a matter of faith, I know that God holds all of time and creation in view and it is only to human persons that something can be called "new." To the other animals, something may be different, but nothing "new." The ultimate "new" is to be found in Christ, the one who has brought a "new covenant." Qoheleth didn't live long enough to know it. Maybe he would have changed his tune! AMEN