Eucharistic meditation, Fourth Epiphany

Ecclesiastes 12:1: Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.

Solomon ends Ecclesiastes, as we have seen, emphasizing again the brevity of life. Life is vapor, all is vapor, a vapor of vapors, most vaporous, superlatively vaporous. Solomon makes it clear at the end of the book that life is vaporous because it will inevitably end in death. Someday, the sun, moon, and stars of your world will go out; someday, the house of your body will cease its activities; someday your silver cord will be broken and your golden bowl crushed. Solomon's conclusion is to remember the Creator while you are young, and live joyfully, live with energy and vigor, while you can, because you won't be able to forever.

Given the fact that we are going to die, that life will end sooner than we expect, Solomon says that we should remember our "Creator" in the days of our youth, and he uses a word that is fairly rare in the Old Testament. God has made all things, and He does all things (Ecclesiastes 11:5). That is the God we should remember.

But why? Why should we specifically remember the Creator in the days of our youth? I think Solomon points to creation specifically because he wants to remind us not only of the power but of the generosity and goodness of God. God the Creator has filled the world with beauty, with pleasures, with gifts for our use. We live life to the fullest when we recognize that every pleasure, every joy we have is a gift from God the Creator.

This table is one of the ways for us to remember the Creator. This table is a memorial of the death of Jesus, as Jesus Himself said. But as a memorial of the death of Jesus, it is a memorial of the infinite generosity and mercy and goodness of God. This table is a weekly reminder that God has given us the world as our food, to eat and drink and rejoice before Him.

As you receive the bread and wine, "remember also the Creator." Remember that we serve a God of goodness, who sends rain on the just and the unjust. Remember that we serve a God who gave His only Son to die for us, and also with Him freely gives us bread and wine and all things.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, January 29, 2006 at 08:16 AM

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