27 September 2018
Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
Many people carefully cultivate the image that other people have of them. Academics and professionals might do this through their publications and their CVs. Younger people might do this through Instagram and Snapchat stories. Often people “share” things that will affect the image that other people have of them, and this is increasingly done using ephemeral images. But underneath this lies the desire to become something more meaningful and lasting in the mind and the life of other people, as if my neighbor’s admiration of my own beauty, intelligence, sophistication, or some other quality might actually cause me to become what they think that I am. In other words, we think that by becoming idols for our neighbors, we might ourselves become gods.
Though the technology we use may be recent, the phenomenon is not. It goes back as far as the first man and women who reached our their hands to take the forbidden fruit to impress a serpent, believing that they would thereby become “like gods” (Gen 3). Ecclesiastes 1 frankly observes in response that this is an ultimately fruitless endeavor. No matter what one does, in the end, “there is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them.” The one who remains is the one whose life we are invited to share, the one who baffles Herod in Luke 9: “Herod said, ‘John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?’ And he kept trying to see him.” Herod was misguided about many things, but his desire to want to see Jesus was right-on. Jesus alone remains. And if we seek him and remain where he calls us, then, though our names are forgotten by future generations, we will not fret, for we will find in him our peace, and in him we will remain.