General. The Eucharist is a prayer of Thanksgiving to God for all He has done with us through our lifetime and, for regular Sunday church-goers, during the past week. God is always there to bestow His mercy and goodness on whosoever requests them because in Him they see a creator and Father Who is ever ready to help and to save through His Son Jesus Christ.

Ecclesiastes. Kohelet laments that all is vanity of vanities and that man does not find his contentedness in useless labours other than those which earn him a living or which serve as a stepping-stone to eternal life. Thinking about God puts sense into our lives other than philosphizing about the human condition and the materialistic fruits of work.

Colossians. St Paul idealizes his vision of the eternal presence of Christ interceding for humanity before the Father. In Christ, our lives are hidden together with that of Christ in the Father. Christ is our life, and so we are bidden to cast our thoughts on heavenly matters, so that we too might appear along with him in glory. To this end, the Apostle recounts in what manner we are to avoid earthly inclinations, which we should in the first place have shed off in Baptism, to achieve Christ within us.

St Luke. Jesus shuns the idea that he came to the world to be judge over the doings of humanity. What was most important was to recognize what really lay at the root of the question put to him. It was graft and profit coming from material wealth which so often caused oneself to turn his sight from heavenly matters to worldly gains and favours. These did not give man any real happiness but only put him in a cycle of vanity of vanities which obscured his beautiful vision of God in His beatific glory.

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