Vanity of the world
“And have nothing to eat.”—Mark 8:2
1. So great was the attraction of our divine Savior, and such the sweetness with which he received everyone, that he drew the people after him by thousands. One day he found himself surrounded by a great multitude who had followed him and stayed with him three days without eating anything. Moved with pity for them, Jesus Christ said to his disciples: “I have compassion on the multitude; for behold they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat” (Mark 8:2). On this occasion he worked the miracle of multiplying seven loaves and a few fishes, and so satisfied the whole multitude.
This is the literal sense; but the mystical sense is that in this world there is no food which can fill the desire of our souls. All the goods of this earth—riches, honors, and pleasures—delight the senses of the body, but cannot satisfy the soul, which was created for God, and which God alone can content. Today, then, I want to speak to you about the vanity of the world, and to show you how greatly the lovers of the world are deceived, who lead an unhappy life on this earth and expose themselves to the grave danger of a still more unhappy life in eternity.
2. “O ye sons of men,” exclaims the royal Prophet against worldlings, “how long will you be dull at heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lying?” (Ps. 4:3). O men, O fools, how long will you keep your hearts fixed on this earth? Why do you love the goods of the world, which are all vanity and lies? Do you imagine you will find peace in acquiring these goods? But how can you hope to find peace, when you forsake the way of peace and walk in the ways of affliction and misery?
See how David himself describes the condition of worldlings: “Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known” (Ps. 14:3). You hope to obtain peace from the world; but how can the world give you the peace you seek, when St. John says “that the whole world is seated in wickedness?” (1 John 5:19). The world is full of iniquity; and so worldlings live as slaves under the power of the wicked one—that is, the devil. The Lord has declared that there is no peace for the wicked who live without his grace: “There is no peace to the wicked” (Isa. 48:22).
3. The goods of the world are only apparent goods, which cannot satisfy the heart of man. “You have eaten,” says the Prophet Haggai, “and have not had enough” (Hag. 1:6). Instead of satisfying our hunger, they increase it. “These,” says St. Bernard, “provoke hunger rather than extinguish it.” If the goods of this world made men content, the rich and powerful would be perfectly happy; but experience shows the very opposite. We see every day that they are the most unhappy of men, always oppressed by fears, by jealousies, and by sadness.
Listen to King Solomon, who abounded in these goods: “And behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Eccles. 1:14). He tells us that everything in this world is vanity, lies, and illusion. And it is not only vanity, but also affliction of spirit—a torment to the poor soul, which finds in all earthly goods nothing that can content it, but only what afflicts it and brings it bitterness. This is a just punishment on those who, instead of serving their God with joy, choose to serve their enemy the world, which makes them suffer the want of every good. “Because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joy and gladness of heart, thou shalt serve thy enemy in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of all things” (Deut. 28:47–48).
Man hopes to content his heart with the goods of this earth; but however abundantly he may possess them, he is never satisfied. And so he always seeks more of them, and is always unhappy. Oh, happy is he who wishes for nothing but God; for God will satisfy all the desires of his heart. “Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart” (Ps. 37:4). And so St. Augustine asks: “What, poor man, do you seek by seeking after goods? Seek the one good, in which are all goods.”
Having learned at his own cost that the goods of this world do not content the heart of man but rather afflict it, the saint turned to the Lord and said: “All things are hard, and thou alone art repose.” And so it was that the seraphic St. Francis, though stripped of everything, found himself richer and more content than all the worldlings on earth, in repeating his prayer, “My God and my all.” Yes; for the peace which fills the soul that desires nothing but God surpasses all the delight that creatures can give. They can only delight the senses, but cannot content the heart of man. “The peace of God which surpasseth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7).
According to St. Thomas, this is the difference between God, the supreme good, and the goods of the earth: the more perfectly we possess God, the more we love him, because we then know ever better his infinite greatness, and so despise all other things; but temporal goods, once we obtain them, we despise, because we see how small they are, and we desire other things which may content us. Summum bonum quanto perfectius possidetur, tanto magis amatur, et alia contemnuntur. Sed in appetitu temporalium bonorum, quando habentur, contemnuntur, et alia appetuntur—“The supreme good, the more perfectly it is possessed, the more it is loved, and other things are despised. But in the desire for temporal goods, when they are possessed, they are despised, and other things are desired” (Summa I-II, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3).
4. The Prophet Hosea tells us that the world holds in its hand a balance that deceives. “He is like Canaan” (that is, the world); “there is a deceitful balance in his hand” (Hos. 12:7). We must, then, weigh things in the balance of God, and not in that of the world, which makes them appear different from what they are. What, in the end, are the goods of this present life? “My days,” said Job, “have been swifter than a post: they have passed by as ships carrying fruits” (Job 9:25–26). The ships are the lives of men, which soon pass away and run swiftly to death; and if men have labored only to provide themselves with earthly goods, these goods are but fruits, which rot at the hour of death: we can carry none of them with us into the other world.
We falsely call our own, says St. Ambrose, the things we cannot carry with us into eternity, where we must live forever, and where virtue alone will accompany us. Non nostra sunt, quae non possumus auferre nobiscum: sola virtus nos comitatur—“Those things are not ours which we cannot take with us: virtue alone accompanies us.” You attend only to what a rich man possessed, says St. Augustine; but tell me—now that he is dying, which of all his possessions does he carry with him? Quid hic habebat attendis, quid secum fert, attende?—“You observe what he had here; observe what he carries with him” (Sermon 13 on the Advent of the Lord). At death such men will carry off with them, at most, a wretched garment, which will rot with them in the grave. And if during life they won a great name, soon after their death their memory will be lost. “Their memory hath perished with a noise” (Ps. 9:7).
5. Oh, if only men would keep ever before their eyes that great saying of Jesus Christ: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26). Surely they would then cease to love the world. What will it profit them at the hour of death to have gained all the goods of this world, if their souls must go into hell to suffer torments for all eternity?
How many has this saying sent to shut themselves up in cloisters, to bury themselves in the desert, to embrace torments and death, as the holy martyrs did! In the history of England we read of some thirty kings and queens who left the world and entered religion in order to make sure of a happy death. This same thought of the vanity of the world made St. Francis Borgia leave it. At the sight of the Empress Isabella, who had died in the flower of her youth, he resolved to serve God alone, saying: “Is this, then, how the grandeurs and crowns of this world come to an end? From this day forward I will serve a master who can never die on me.”
The day of death is called “the day of destruction” (“The day of destruction is at hand”—Deut. 32:35), because on that day we shall lose and leave behind all the goods of the world—all its riches, honors, and pleasures. The shadow of death darkens all the treasures and grandeurs of this earth; it darkens even the purple and the crown. Sister Margaret of St. Anne, a Discalced Carmelite and daughter of the Emperor Rudolf the Second, used to say: “What good are kingdoms at the hour of death?” “The affliction of an hour maketh one forget great delights” (Ecclus. 11:29). The mournful hour of death puts an end to all the delights and pomps of this earth.
St. Gregory says that all goods which cannot remain with us, or which cannot relieve us of our miseries, are deceitful. Fallaces sunt quae nobiscum permanere non possunt: fallaces sunt quae mentis nostrae inopiam non expellunt—“Deceitful are those things which cannot remain with us; deceitful are those things which do not expel the poverty of our mind” (Hom. 15 on Luke). Behold a sinner whose riches and honors made him the envy of others. Death overtook him at the height of his glory, and he is no longer what he was. “I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and lo! he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found” (Ps. 37:35–36).
6. These truths the unhappy damned confess in hell, but to no purpose, crying out in tears: “What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow” (Wis. 5:8–9). What, they say, have our pomps and riches profited us, now that all is passed away like a shadow, and nothing remains for us but eternal torment and despair?
My dear Christians, let us open our eyes, and now that we have it in our power, let us attend to the salvation of our souls; for in the next life, if we lose them, we shall not be able to save them. Aristippus the philosopher was once shipwrecked and lost all his goods; but he was so highly esteemed for his learning that, as soon as he reached the shore, the people of that place provided him with everything he had lost. He then wrote to his friends back home, urging them to seek those goods which cannot be lost by shipwreck. This is exactly what our relatives and friends who have passed into eternity send word to us from the other world: that in this present life we should provide ourselves with those goods which are not lost at death.
Otherwise, at that moment, if we shall have attended only to heaping up earthly goods, we shall be called fools, and shall hear ourselves told what was said to the rich man in the gospel, who, after reaping an abundant harvest from his fields, said to himself: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thy rest, eat, drink, make good cheer. But God said to him: Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” (Luke 12:19–20). He said “they require thy soul of thee,” because to each man his soul is given, not to dispose of as he pleases, but in trust, that he may keep it faithful to God and so return it to him when it shall be presented at the tribunal of the supreme Judge.
The Redeemer concludes this parable by saying: “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:21). This is what happens to those who seek to grow rich in the goods of this life, and not in the love of God. And so St. Augustine asks: “What has the rich man, if he has not charity? And the poor man, if he has charity, what does he not have?” He who possesses all the treasures of this world but has not God is the poorest of men; but the poor who have God have everything, though they possess nothing of the goods of this earth.
7. A strange thing indeed! “The children of this world,” says Jesus Christ, “are wiser in their generation than the children of light” (Luke 16:8). How shrewd worldlings are in earthly affairs, though they live amid the darkness of this world! “See,” says St. Augustine, “how much men endure for the things they love with a vicious love.” What toil they undergo to acquire some property or to win some lucrative post! With what care they labor to preserve their bodily health! They consult the best physician and take the best medicines. And then, for the salvation of their souls, the children of light—that is, Christians—are so careless, and will suffer nothing!
Oh, God! By the light of the death candle, at that hour, the hour that is called the time of truth, worldlings will see and confess their folly. Then each of them will say: Oh, that I had made myself a saint! Oh, that I had left all and loved God alone! At the hour of death, Philip the Second, King of Spain, called his son to him, and casting off his royal robe, showed him his breast devoured by worms, and said: “Son, see how we die, and how the grandeurs of the world come to an end.” He then had a wooden cross fastened to his neck, and, having set his affairs in order for death, turned again to his son and said: “My son, I wished you to be present at this scene, that you might understand how the world in the end treats even monarchs.” And he died saying: “Oh, that I had been a lay brother in some religious order, and not a king!” Such is the language at the hour of death even of the great ones of the earth, whom men call the fortunate of this world. But what do these regrets and sighs accomplish at that hour, except to increase the anguish and remorse of the lovers of the world at the point of death—just when the scene is about to close?
8. And what is our present life but a scene that soon comes to an end? It may end when we least expect it, as happened to Casimir, King of Poland, who one day, while seated at table with his nobles, raised a cup to his lips to drink, and died; and so the scene ended for him. The Emperor Celsus was killed seven days after his election, and the scene closed for him. Ladislaus, King of Bohemia, a youth of eighteen, while he awaited his bride, the daughter of the King of France, and the festivities were being prepared, was suddenly seized one morning by a violent pain that took away his life; and couriers were at once dispatched to tell the bride to return to France, since for Ladislaus the scene was over.
This is what St. Paul meant when he wrote: “The fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:31)—the fashion, that is, the scene, the play. “The world,” comments Cornelius à Lapide, “is like a stage. One generation passes away, and another comes. He who plays the king does not carry off the purple with him. Tell me, O villa, O house, how many masters have you had?” In every age the inhabitants of this earth are changed. Cities and kingdoms are forever filling up with new people. The first pass to the other world, and a second generation follows; and these are followed by others. He who in this scene has played the part of a king is no longer a king; the master of that villa or that palace is no longer its master.
And so the Apostle counsels us: “The time is short; it remaineth that… they that use this world be as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:29–31). Since our stay on this earth is short, and all must end with our death, let us use this world only to despise it, as though it did not exist for us; and let us labor to acquire the eternal treasures of paradise, where, as the Gospel says, there are no moths to consume them, nor thieves to steal them. “But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” (Matt. 6:20). St. Teresa, then, used to say: “We should set no value on what ends with life; the true life is to live in such a way that we do not fear death.” He will not fear death who lives detached from the vanities of this world, and is careful to provide himself only with those goods which will go with him into eternity, and make him happy forever.
Points for Reflection
1. “Oh, happy is he who wishes for nothing but God; for God will satisfy all the desires of his heart. The peace which fills the soul that desires nothing but God surpasses all the delight that creatures can give” (§3)
2. “What will it profit them at the hour of death to have gained all the goods of this world, if their souls must go into hell to suffer torments for all eternity?” (§5)
3. “Let us labor to acquire the eternal treasures of paradise, where there are no moths to consume them, nor thieves to steal them. We should set no value on what ends with life; the true life is to live in such a way that we do not fear death” (§8)