Living Beyond the Vanities of the World (Friday, Week 29, Year 2)

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Psalm 24 is one of those psalms that provide a lot of things to reflect upon. The second stanza of that Psalm asks some questions and answers them: Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord? Who shall ascend to His holy place? The man with clean hands and pure heart, whose soul is not set on vain things! I am particularly interested in the second part of that answer, “who soul is not set on vain things”.

A lot of things have been said about vanity especially when we reflect on the Book of Ecclesiastes, where the preacher (who had thoroughly experienced and reflected upon life) emphatically remarked that “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. It should not be too hard for us to understand that anything that does not follow us to heaven is a vanity. Anything that cannot go beyond the limits of time and space is a puff of air. I hope we will forever be conscious of this undeniable fact. My physical body, my beauty or my intelligence is not going with me to the world beyond. Our pride is not going with us; in fact, the Bible says that “a proud heart the Lord detests” (Prov. 16:5). Our cultural heritage or cultural pride is not going with us. Our religious beliefs are not going with us. In that mountain of the Lord, in that holy place, we are not going to see Catholics or Moslems or Anglicans or Jews or Gentiles, etc. In that kingdom, all these will not exist. On earth and in heaven, we all should continue to remain one as St Paul expressed in Gal.3:28.

When we set our hearts on the vain things of the world, we will not climb at all, not to talk of going far. And these vanities can be in the form of materialism, nepotism, sectionalism, pride, and so on. Vanity is like a blindfold: it blinds us from seeing what lies ahead and makes us believe that life ends here. It makes us believe that the things that really matter are the material things of this world, our cultural or religious peculiarities, and the rest. When we find ourselves in such situation, we will not be able to love and unity will rarely be established. And that is why St Paul draws the attention of the Ephesians to the issue of love and unity: “forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 2:2-3). That is what really matters. In 1 Cor. 13:8, St Paul says that “everything will come to an end but only love exists forever”. Talking to the multitudes, as we have it in the gospel reading (cf. Luke 12:54-59), Jesus also emphasizes the issue of letting go, reconciling with your enemy and establishing peace and unity because these are the things that will matter at the end of the day. 

According to the Psalmist, inasmuch as we continue to set our souls on these vanities, we will not be able to climb to the mountain of the Lord, to the eternal kingdom of God. May God help us to always remember that “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”!  


                


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