Friends of God

Invite others to pray with you this Lent. Share the Rosary and win a pilgrimage with School of Faith!

One

The Goal of Life: To Please God

The reason why God made everything, including you and me, is so He could take delight in the goodness of what He has made. In other words, the purpose of all existence is to please God. That’s why we’re alive. But oddly enough, not only do we sometimes forget that we exist in order to please God, we actually forget what it means to please God.

We forget what the Lord wants from us. We forget that pleasing God doesn’t mean accomplishing tasks for Him. It means becoming the sort of person whose company God enjoys.

Two

Calling the Twelve

In Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus calls the twelve apostles together, Mark doesn’t first say that the mission of the apostles is to preach or to cast out demons. That is their mission, but it’s not their primary mission.

Mark chapter 3 says, “Jesus went up into the hills and summoned those he wanted. So they came to him and he appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to preach.”

The Jerusalem Bible translation says, “They were to be his companions,” first and preachers second.

Their primary mission is to be with Him because they are the ones He has desired and chosen to be with Him. To be His companions. And that is the primary mission of every Christian life, to be with God, to be His companions, because he has chosen us and desires to be with us. 

It is our job to become someone who the Lord takes pleasure in being with.

Three

Not God’s Workers so much as God’s companions

St. John of the Cross has this lovely reminder that all God wants is for us to become more perfect. He says, “All our works and our trials, even though they be the greatest possible, are nothing in the sight of God. For through them we cannot give him anything or fulfill his only desire, which is the exaltation of the soul. Of these other things he desires nothing for himself, since he has no need of them. If anything pleases him, it is the exaltation of the soul.” Spiritual Canticle, stanza 28.

God doesn’t want us to suffer, unless that suffering makes us more perfect, a more fitting companion for Himself. And God doesn’t need us to get anything done for Him. He can have anything He wants, any work completed instantly, just by willing it.

If He gives us tasks and is pleased that we carry them out, it is only because by doing them well and humbly and patiently we become better company for Himself. 

Four

Wife or a Housekeeper

Imagine a man who wanted to marry a woman because He wanted to delight in her goodness and her companionship. But imagine she thought he just wanted a housekeeper to get chores done. She might be cranky and disheveled and unkempt and coarse and thoughtless. It wouldn’t matter if she did a lot of sweeping and dusting, the man could have paid a cleaning service to do that. What he wanted was a bride, a companion, a beautiful thoughtful person to share His life with.

And what makes someone a good wife, a good husband, or a good friend – is that they are good and virtuous.

Which is why trying to perfect our souls in virtue, no matter what we’re doing or not doing is the chief business of life and the chief business of being a good companion to the Lord.

Five

A Companion Fit for God

John of the Cross goes further yet. He says that God is pleased when we, His children, His bride, His friends, when we become companions that can share a certain level of equality with Him.

John says of God and the soul that, “there is no way by which He can exalt her more than by making her equal to Himself,” and so “He is pleased only with her love. For the property of love is to make the lover equal to the object loved.” Spiritual Canticle

By perfect love, God raises us to where He can enjoy us almost as a peer. And, amazingly, if we attain perfect love, we really can love God with a kind of equality, because we’re giving everything back to Him that He’s given to us.

St. John says that the soul, “does this truly and perfectly, giving all that was given it by Him in order to repay love, which is to give as much as is given” Living Flame, stanza 3; cf. Spiritual Canticle, stanza 38).

It is a great delight to be loved as much as you yourself have loved. This is the delight we give God when we love Him back with all of ourselves. And it is a great delight to be able to give everything you have to one who has given everything to you. That is the delight the soul is able to experience when it becomes perfect. So it is that the soul and God become perfectly suited companions, lovers, friends. With a perfect balance to their love, a perfect exchange that makes them both delight in one another’s company.

Both are happy to be with the other, to give and to receive, to delight in the goodness of the other for all eternity. That’s the purpose of the spiritual life. That is, ultimately, the purpose of all human existence.