What is the meaning and purpose of life?
Catechism Meditation:
God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him, and so to come to paradise. Beatitude makes us ‘partakers of the divine nature’ and of eternal life. With beatitude, man enters into the glory of Christ and into the joy of the Trinitarian life. ―No. 1721
REFLECTION. Among one of the first questions in the old Baltimore Catechism was “why did God make me?” The answer was, “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.” In his article, To Know, Love, and Serve, Bishop Francis Malone writes… When we think of the progression in this answer: KNOW – LOVE – SERVE, we can readily see how logical this is: You cannot SERVE someone you do not LOVE and you cannot LOVE someone you do not KNOW. It just makes sense. So, I would like to point out the first of these: to KNOW. The more we know about God, the rest follows in loving Him and in serving Him. All three of these (know – love – serve) are built upon our life of prayer, our attendance at Mass, our faith in the Eucharist, and our devotions (especially our devotion of Mary). And when we set our sights on reading and gaining knowledge of God through the Bible, God speaks to us and gives us direction in our lives. This is especially true when we do not know or are not sure about the future―all the more reason to desire to know more about this loving God Who sent to us His only begotten Son, through whom we gain even greater knowledge and understanding of Him.
God wants us to serve Him, and for sure, He desires that we love Him. But it all begins when we try to get to know Him. And while there are so many good authors and great saints whose writings help us, we should keep His Word, Sacred Scriptures, as the best place to start. Of course, God does not want us to serve Him and others out of a sense of guilt, fear, or duty. Rather, God wants us to be motivated by true joy, sincere love, and a profound gratitude for all God has given us―most especially for the gift of eternal life that Jesus Christ gained for us on the Cross. Then, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to faithfully fulfill our mission, our vocation in life, by being of loving service to God and others. For as the Danish proverb says, “What you are is God’s gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God.”
PRAYER. O God, with all my heart I want to know You, love You, and serve You in this life and be happy with You forever in the next.
Timeless Wisdom Quote:
“Because God is Life, I must serve Him; because He is Truth, I must know Him; because He is Love, I must love Him. Hence the true nature of man is a creature made by God, and destined to know, love, and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him in the next.” ― Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen