Vanity Of Vanities Kelly Enters Religious Life
Vanity of vanity says Qoheleth all things are vanity. We hear that reading and for people that don’t have faith or are not inspired in their faith that can sound like life is pretty bad. Like one comedian says, “Life stinks, get a helmet.” Someone else says, “Life stinks and then you die.” That’s kind of what we get from Qoheleth. Vanity of Vanities is all things are vanity.
As I was preparing for this homily and researching some of the text I came along the original Latin of the word vanity. It’s not what I thought it meant. I thought vanity meant looking in the mirror, delighting in yourself and thinking about yourself all the time. Vanity means emptiness. Vanity of vanities all things are emptiness. It comes from the word that we might have for vanish. Something that vanishes before your eyes. All things are vanity. All things in time of vanish. All things disappear. Vanity of Vanities is all things are vanity.
For someone that doesn’t have faith this can be pretty discouraging. Wow, life is pretty bad everything disappears and you die. But for we who do have faith it’s actually a wonderful thing that nothing in this world lasts forever, only God does. The idea is that there’s no thing that we can hold on to that will not disappear and basically there is nothing we can make an idol out of. There’s nothing we can hold on forever that won’t disappear and the good news is we won’t be to attached to anything in this world because ultimately we will be led to God.
Let me give you a modern day example of this Vanity of Vanities. I have a couple of good friends who are my age both women, both beautiful and they’re both discerning religious life. One of them is actually going into the convent this fall. She’s a beautiful young girl. She’s got blond hair, her name is Kelly, she is just a wonderful girl inside and out. She’s discerned into religious life and she’s leaving this fall. She’s very much called to do it but she’s starting to get a little anxious because she has to let go of everything. This is one of the more conservative orders and she’ll wear a habit. I said to her, “Do they give you a packing list of what you need to take with you like when you go off to school?” She said, “Yes it’s a pretty short list. I’m allowed the take the Documents of Vatican II and a pair of pajamas.” That was it and she has to give everything away. Everything. She’s going through all her things. We’ve been having farewell parties for her. She’s bringing boxes of everything and giving her clothes away to her friends and her books, CD’s and her music. She’s giving it all away.
I’ve been so inspired by her it’s awesome to see. I had lunch with her yesterday and I asked her, “What’s the most difficult thing to give away?” She said, “Some of my keepsakes.” She said that the hardest thing for her to give away was a ring she’d been wearing. It’s been kind of a purity ring she was wearing. It was the ring that her grandmother wore. It was her grandmother’s wedding ring. Her grandmother died when her father was really young. Her father was only a couple of years old when her grandmother died. The grandfather kept that ring and gave to his son and his son gave it to his daughter. So she has the ring from her grandmother and she has to give that away. That for her is the hardest thing. I said, “Is there anything else?” and she said, “Well when we go in we have to give away our name.” They get one year with the name Sister Kelly but after that she’ll be given a new name. Then when she wears the habit, all of her hair will be cut off. So all that beautiful blond hair will be cut off. I said, “Why do they do that?” She said, “It’s a sign of vanity.” So they’ll cut off all her hair. Kelly this beautiful girl. I’m so inspired by her because she’s following the call she’s really living the gospel. She’s giving up everything and following God.
The spiritual director said the first year is kind of discernment so you won’t really know until the first year. So he said, “I want you to keep some things just in case”. She said, “Well how much?’ and he said, “well I don’t know the number three is good. That’s a scriptural number, it’s the Trinity, why don’t you get three bins and keep whatever fits in three bins” So she went to Wal-mart and she’s trying to think. Three bins to put whatever I want to keep in life in these three bins. She looks and there’s a whole aisle of bins at Wal-mart and she sees these huge ginormous ones and she goes I better not go with that one. She walks down the aisle a little bit further and she sees these little bins and she goes those might be too small, how about if I go with the medium size. She gets three medium size bins. She brings them home and she starts to put things into them and realizes these are huge. Medium size bins are huge. It’s such an awesome thing to see her living that passage of letting go of everything and come and follow me.
The other girl has a very interesting story. She’s also my age and she was married. Her husband developed cancer and he died within months of her being married to him. Of course after that time of marriage she was searching and she was confused. God what do you do with a widow at the age of her mid-thirties. She was genuinely searching for this call and she has this call right now to join the convent. She is beginning to discern which order to join. It’s such a tremendous thing for me to watch the faith of these women. Really inspiring and remarkable.
The truth is all of us can get caught up into vanity. Again, what I mean by vanity it is not the old looking in the mirror where you spend hours looking in front of the mirror but the vanity of emptiness. The vanity of trying to fill our lives things and finding emptiness.
Think about maybe for yourselves if you think, if I get this, I’ll be happy. If I get this promotion I’ll be happy or if I finally get the build the house of my dreams, I’ll be happy. So we get it. We finally get everything that we think is going to make us happy and then we realize . . . what . . . emptiness. It doesn’t bring happiness and so what do we do? We go for more, right? Maybe if I get more I’ll be happy. Maybe if I get the newest update on my computer I’ll be happy. Maybe if I get the next iPhone then I’ll be finally happy. What do we find . . . emptiness. It doesn’t fulfill all of our needs.
Now if we don’t have faith like Qoheleth it can bring about despair. All of life is vanity. The great thing about Qoheleth, about the gospel reading today is the discovery of vanity, the discovery of emptiness is not that God doesn’t exist but actually God calling us to something greater.
Maybe your feeling in your life you’re at the point where you’re doing everything you are supposed to be doing. You have a great job, you’re making money, you have a marriage and you feel emptiness. That emptiness is actually not a sign of God being distant. That emptiness is God is so close that He’s telling you, “I’ve got something more for you.” That emptiness can actually help us to move closer to God. That emptiness is actually creating a space in us for God to dwell and ultimately that sign of emptiness is a hope. That though for some reason we put our hope and trust in all these things Vanity of Vanities. All things vanished. The good thing is when things vanish and we’re left empty, that’s when we seek God. That’s when we realize that all these things have not made us happy. All the accomplishments and success, wealth or anything we can store does not make us happy in the end and that’s the beginning of wisdom because that’s when we start to finally yearn and search for God.
These two women that are entering religious life have already discovered this. Both of them have had wonderful taste of everything that life can offer but what do they find . . . emptiness. Why are they able to give up everything and follow Him because all those things are vanities. All things are vanity. All things are empty. All things at some point disappear.
If we don’t have faith that can bring despair but if we do, that brings great hope because when things disappear we finally reach out and grasp for God.
