Fr Paul doesn’t buy Qoheleth’s argument in today’s first reading. In fact, he believes, we do remember and learn from those who have come before us. Today, with the feast of St Vincent DePaul and the 322nd birthday of St Alphonsus Liguori, we have perfect examples of that. The organizations St Vincent and St Alphonsus founded to serve the poor in France and Italy remember them in the most meaningful way possible. They have extended their founders’ service to the poor to nearly every country on earth.
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.
ECCL 1:2-11
Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening … [He] said, “John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?” And he kept trying to see him.
LK 9:7-9
When I was working as a Chaplain at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz and needed clothes for the homeless, migrants, or others in E. R. I always called St Vincent’s and they never said no even if it was late at night. They simply said “what size and how many.” I will always remember and be grateful for the life of St. Vincent de Paul.