Life without a total commitment to Christ is not just vanity, but all vanity. Work, sex, speech, sight, and hearing are all vanity without Jesus (Eccl 1:3-8). Because of this, you would think that people would be eager to know and love Christ, since He is the only Meaning to life (see Jn 14:6). However, the reactions of worldly people to Christ are often like Herod's reaction. They find Christ perplexing (Lk 9:7) and are "very curious to see Him" (Lk 9:9).

They will never get beyond this perplexed curiosity until they do two things: repent and believe. We can think and talk about Jesus forever — all the way to hell — but the only way to know Him personally is to repent of our sins (see Mk 1:15; Acts 2:38) and put our faith in Him rather than in ourselves. Jesus will give us the grace to break out of the vicious, vain, meaningless cycle of life, if we let it be done unto us according to God's will (see Lk 1:38).

We only have one Way out of vanity, perplexity, and curiosity (see Jn 14:6). His name is Jesus. "There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Rescript:  †Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, February 25, 2008

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