desire - by fr. greg

One of today's mass readings is an old favorite, highly relevant to our times:

Ecclesiastes 1:2,2:21-23

Vanity of vanities; all is vanity

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!

For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.

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Desire is the root of suffering. To covet is to suffer - feed the soul instead, give it what it really needs. When the soul is not properly nurtured by some contemplation of the numinous world, whether that be prayer, art, music, or some other meaningful connection with God, a need exists that cannot be sated, no matter how many love affairs one pursues, how much money one makes. Feed the soul. When one dies, that soul is all that will experience eternal life - the rest is temporal.