Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.

Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.

The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.

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So I want to start with a reading from scripture.

This is from the book of Ecclesiastes, which is the perfect book for what I want to talk about.

What prophet have we from all the toil which we toil at under the sun? One generation

departs and another generation comes, but the world forever stays. The sun rises and the sun sets,

and then it presses on to the place where it rises. Shifting south and north,

back and forth shifts the wind, constantly shifting its course. All rivers flow to the sea,

yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they flow, the rivers continue to flow.

All things are wearisome, too wearisome for words.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor has the ear enough of hearing.

I, Koheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my mind to search and investigate in wisdom all things that are done under the sun.

A bad business God has given to human beings to be busied with.

I have seen all things that are done under the sun,

and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind.

So the title of this retreat is happiness and the meaning of life.

And the title almost implies that these are more or less the same sort of thing. And as I was thinking about what I want to talk to you guys about, well,

I started to think about that. And it seems to me that like they're not the same thing.

Question of like happiness is something different than the meaning of life.

And I think it's quite a bit easier for us to grasp what happiness is than it is for us to

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