Overview:

Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time

A Reflection for Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,
before the evil days come
And the years approach of which you will say,
I have no pleasure in them;
Before the sun is darkened,
and the light, and the moon, and the stars,
while the clouds return after the rain…” (Eccl. 12:1-2 )

Find today’s readings here.

For today’s reflection on this passage from Ecclesiastes, will you forgive me if I simply set down before you the text itself? Because I don’t know if you will find any more austerely superb poetic drama in the Bible than this one. Tolkein and Hemingway were clearly not original, their style founded in texts like this. Whatever nourishment you get from the content, the style itself is enough to feed on here. 

The writer begins with a straightforward summons:

“Rejoice, O young man, while you are young
and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth.”

He then urges us to remember God before “evil days” are upon us. Before:

“the sun is darkened,
and the light, and the moon, and the stars,
while the clouds return after the rain;
When the guardians of the house tremble,
and the strong men are bent,
And the grinders are idle because they are few,
and they who look through the windows grow blind;
When the doors to the street are shut,
and the sound of the mill is low;
When one waits for the chirp of a bird,
but all the daughters of song are suppressed;
And one fears heights,
and perils in the street;
When the almond tree blooms,
and the locust grows sluggish
and the caper berry is without effect,
Because man goes to his lasting home,
and mourners go about the streets;
Before the silver cord is snapped
and the golden bowl is broken,
And the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
and the broken pulley falls into the well,
And the dust returns to the earth as it once was,
and the life breath returns to God who gave it.”

Read it again, and again, and rejoice that someone centuries ago knew how to create art so simple and lovely. The message about relishing our lives in God’s earthly kingdom before they eventually fade away is one worth meditating on. And of course the famous ending passage, “Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity!” But the text that got us there is anything but vain. It is pure gold.

Joe Hoover, S.J., is America’s poetry editor and producer of a new film, “The Allegory.”