The Purpose of Life
One
The Purpose of Life
I want to make sure you are all on track with your life. The purpose of life is to get a good education so you can make a ton of money, buy a really big house, drive a nice car, and most of all, be free to do whatever you want! Well…not quite. In fact, God made you for something infinitely better.
Now this might surprise you, but God made you for just one purpose. He wants to place His divine life in you so that you will be like God and live like God forever.
The Catechism says it this way, “God became man so that man might become God.”
In John chapter 14 Jesus told us that the Father, Son, and Spirit would live in us and enable us to live the life of God. This is what we mean by holiness, God living in us and transforming the way we live. And it’s meant for every person on the planet.
The Catechism says it this way, "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity." All are called to holiness. As Jesus said: ‘Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’" 2013
And we are not supposed to wait until heaven to become holy. Actually, you can’t get into heaven until you are holy.
So, better not wait…
Two
How do we let God live through us?
God wants to give his divine life to us through the Mass and the Sacraments.
God begins His divine life in us through baptism through which the Father, Son, and Spirit begin to live in us.
Jesus nourishes and increases his life in us, daily if we want, by means of the Eucharist at Mass. He strengthens his life in us by Confirmation. When we have diminished or destroyed the life of God in us by sin – God restores it by Confession. When his life grows weak in us because of sickness or old age – he strengthens us by the sacrament of anointing. And to help us live our vocation by the life of God he gives himself to us in Sacrament of Marriage or Holy Orders.
God wants to give his divine life to you – to make you like himself – he gives it through the Mass and the Sacraments.
Three
Prayer
God gives his divine life to us by the Mass and the Sacraments. We receive his divine life by opening our soul through prayer. Prayer is the self-opening of the soul to receive God.
Prayer is friendship with God: talking, listening and just being together. Spend time with him in prayer, in daily meditation, as in the Rosary by three simple steps.
Read or listen to something from the Word of God found in Scripture, Tradition (the writings of the Saints) or the Magisterium (the teaching of the Church). As soon as something strikes you – stop reading.
Reflect or think about what struck you in order to understand the supernatural truth and love God for this truth
Then apply that truth to your life. Ask yourself, “Am I living this or not? If I am not living this, then what habitual or root vice(s) are preventing me? Pride, vanity, envy, sloth, anger, greed, gluttony, lust, etc. What occasions of sin, what circumstances prompt me to fall into this vice or sin?
It is essential to learn two things by the double reflection on the Word of God and one’s life: one’s dominant habitual sins and the occasions that lead to those sins.
Resolution
Choose something practical and concrete to remember or to do that day based on your meditation. Then as we put into practice the teaching of Jesus through our daily resolution we slowly begin to think and feel and act with Jesus and we are transformed.
Four
Strive after holiness, transforming union with God, simply by living the way he designed you.
Sleep, drink coffee, and spend time in deep friendship with God in daily mediation. Cook and eat real food that is good for you. Exercise. Work to make a good contribution to the world and others. In your profession, raising and educating kids to be excellent humans for the world, as a student – whatever your work is – make some good contribution to the world!
Develop deep friendships, spend time with those people regularly, delight in them, and help one another to a deep friendship with Jesus.
Grow in the knowledge and truth of the world around you, especially about God, yourself, and his plan for you.
Experience beauty in all its forms – nature, art, music, literature. Delight in all these good things but don’t pursue one to the neglect or harm of the others…And not as the ultimate source of your happiness, identity or worth. Pursue and delight in them in a way that leads you to God.
Five
Pursue the good things in life but do not become attached to them as if they were the greatest good.
God is the greatest good and the source of all good. If in the end, you wind up with God, then the Author of all that is good will give you everything.
So we need to love the lesser things less and the greater things more. Love God above all things.
And when God allows one of the good things in life to be diminished or taken away, like a profession, or health, or a loved one – be assured of this – God only allows the loss of very good things that He may prepare us to receive Everything!
Therefore, in all things pray Thy will be done.
Finally, if we want to let Jesus live through us and become saints, then live with constant gratitude. For Scripture teaches us to: Be happy at all times; pray constantly; and for all things give thanks to God, because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus.
The greatest way to grow in all the virtues and allow Jesus to live through you is to thank Him for everything!
Try it. You will be transformed and if you keep it up – you too will become a Saint! You can do this! You were made for this! You have what it takes!