Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 / Luke 9:7-9
When it comes to the subject of history, some will find it interesting while others might find it burdensome in having to remember dates and events and names that are tongue-twisters.
But if we don't know history then we may not know anything at all. We are a leaf that does not know it is part of a tree (Michael Crichton).
Hence, even Confucius would say: “Study the past if you would define the future.”
In the gospel, Herod was puzzled when he heard about all that was being done by Jesus, because some people were saying that John the Baptist had come back to life, or that Elijah had reappeared or that one of the prophets had come back to life.
If Herod had recourse to the history that was recorded in the Jewish scriptures, then he would know that Jesus was the personification of the prophetic voice that was heard throughout the history of Israel, just as John the Baptist and Elijah and all the other prophets had been.
Those who cannot remember the past are bound to repeat it, and history happens twice because people didn't listen at the first time.
Herod ordered the beheading of John the Baptist; he also had a hand in the death of Jesus, and he ended up as a tragedy in himself.
In the 1st reading, the book of Ecclesiastes gives a reflection of history and about life, when it said that there is nothing new under the sun. Long before in time it existed, just that no memory remains of earlier times. And for all his toil under the sun, what does man gain by it?
Let us take that verse from the Responsorial Psalm: Lord, make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart, so that from one generation to the next, God will be our refuge and we will find the meaning of our lives.