Saturday 3 & Sunday 4 July

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This weekend is Saturday 3and Sunday 4 June,  beginning the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time.

The choir of Westminster Cathedral, directed by David Hill, sing Victoria’s Taedet animam meam: ‘My soul is weary of my life.’   When you look at the people around you now, do they look a bit weary, a bit tired of their lives?  Perhaps you feel a bit weary yourself, even now as you’re trying to pray – not in the mood – too busy, too preoccupied, too tired. But if that is how you find yourself right now, just acknowledge that feeling, and present yourself, nonetheless, to God, just as you are. And God will listen to you, and accept you, just as you are.

This weekend’s reading is from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Vanity! The word tolls like a bell through this short reading, seven times in all. Vanity, or, as we might say, pointlessness. What’s the point of it all? Wisdom, skill, work and play – all utterly pointless in the end. Do you find anything in yourself that agrees with this?

Ask yourself for a moment why you think such words might have been included in the bible.

How would you want to respond to this so-called Teacher, who offers you these thoughts?

As the passage is read again, try and see if you can work out what the Teacher was hoping for from life, before he came to this rather bleak assessment.

“All their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation”. How does God respond to people who feel like this?  How does God respond to you when you feel like this? Take a moment now to listen to God’s responses.