The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Some think the book of Ecclesiastes is a rather depressing or bleak book, and you can get a glimpse of why, from the short excerpts you heard in today’s reading. “ Vanity of vanities! All is vanity … It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with…I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun...I gave up my heart to despair over all the toil of my labors…what has a man from all the toil and striving of his heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest.” The words may strike us as an expression of dark pessimism or even leaning towards unbelief…or perhaps we can secretly identify with his frustrations about work and life in general. Does your work or life ever seem like an unhappy business? Do you even hate your work? Or maybe even if you...

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we come to the end of the Christmas season, and tomorrow January 6, officially begins the season of Epiphany, which focuses on Christ revealing Himself. Today’s reading are linked by the theme of wisdom. In the Old Testament we see King Solomon, the 3 rd king of Israel, and son of the great King David, having a vision from God and asking for wisdom. Then in our Gospel reading, we see the 12 year old child Jesus going to the Temple in Jerusalem, and “increasing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” Like any other child, Jesus grew in knowledge of the Lord, studied the scriptures, and sat listening to the rabbis, asking them questions. Yet in a marvelous mystery, the Scriptures also reveal Jesus to be the eternal, all-knowing, Wisdom of God. In fact, while Advent is still fresh in our memories, we might recall the first of the “O Antiphons” which prays to Christ: O Wisdom, proceeding f...