One of the oldest pursuits of man is to find the meaning of life. Why am I here? What difference does any of it make? The Baltimore Catechism, which originated at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 asks the question,
“Why did God make me?”
It answers the question with,
“God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be with him forever in heaven.”
God brings every person into this world because he wishes to be with that person forever in heaven.
When God made the angels he gave them all knowledge of who he is. Who is God? God is pure, sacrificial love. Love can never be forced upon another. Love can only be offered. This means that all persons, angelic and human, must be able to accept or reject God’s infinite love. To be able to reject God’s love there must be something other than his love to choose from. Hell exists as a choice so that love can therefore also exist. Because the angels were created with full knowledge of who God is their free will choice, once made, is binding upon them for all of eternity. The devil cannot repent of his pride and reenter heaven.
God went a different route when he created us. Mankind was created with no knowledge of who God is. God put into our hearts an infinite hole only he can fill, which creates within us the desire to know our creator. Then he slowly reveals himself to us over time. In a way, this allows us to court our God and fall in love with him. Our free will choice to accept or reject God’s love becomes binding on us at the moment of our death. God sends no one to hell. We choose hell by rejecting God’s infinite love for us. This makes the ultimate purpose of our lives to know our creator so we can freely accept the love he has for us and spend all of eternity with him in heaven.
We were created in the image and likeness of God. If God is sacrificial love, then that is the image we were created in. Because of the disobedience of our original parents, we are fallen, broken creatures. We no longer conform to the image we were created in. We have been given our time on earth to reclaim that image. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. If heaven at the end of our lives is the goal we desire, we need to spend our lives configuring ourselves as closely as we can to the image of Jesus. Does that mean we have to swing a hammer for a living, walk on water, or cure lepers? What does the image of Christ look like and how can we conform our lives to look like his?
The answer is three-fold.
Sacrificial love is the highest form of all love, a supernatural love. It is a love that puts the good of the other above all else. This is the love God has for the world –
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16
This is the love Jesus has for us –
“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13
And it is this love that Jesus has commanded we have for each other –
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” – John 3:34.
How did Jesus love us? He gave up his life as a sacrifice for us. This is the kind of love we are called to have for one another. We are to sacrifice for the good of one another. What a different world this would be if we all could put the needs of the other before our own selfish desires.
In 1 Samuel 15:23 we read,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the word of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
Obedience is more pleasing to God than sacrifice. In fact, sacrifice would never have been necessary if our first parents were obedient to God. Sacrifice, and now penance, is only necessary because we are disobedient to God’s commands. Jesus’ obedience and sacrifice on the cross repaired the damage that is done by our disobedience and makes it possible for eternal life in heaven to be offered to us. But eternal life is only possible if we obey God’s commands. We cannot be disobedient to God and think that he will allow us to live with him in an intimate union with him for all eternity.
God gave us the Ten Commandments, commandments that flow from the very nature of God, which is sacrificial love. Jesus summarized these commandments down to two; Love God above all else, and love each other with the same love God has for us. When we follow these two commandments, we are obedient to God and our obedience is more pleasing to him than any penance we can offer.
Through his death on the cross, Jesus won for us the salvation of the world and opened to us the gates of heaven. But if this is all he did for us it would not have been enough. Through the disobedience of our first parents, we became slaves to death. As slaves we needed to be ransomed back from death. Jesus’ suffering and death redeemed mankind. Redeem means to buy back. Jesus bought us back at the cost of his suffering and death. Suffering is the currency in which love is measured. You only love someone as much as you are willing to suffer for them. Ask any loving parent who has had to watch their child suffer and they will tell you that they would gladly take their place if it were possible.
Through Adam’s sin we were sold into slavery. The ransom for our freedom was set so high that no mere human could every pay it. It required God to become one of us, to offer his blood of infinite worth to free us from the bonds of slavery. As Catholics, we believe in redemptive suffering. If suffering is the currency of love, God can use our suffering to give love and grace to ourselves or others in need. Saint Paul teaches that, through the Mass the crucifixion is made present to us so we can make up in our bodies that which is lacking in crucifixion of Christ. What could possibly be lacking in the crucifixion of Christ? Quite simply, our participation in it. We are allowed to unite our suffering with that of Jesus’ and share in the redemption of mankind.
The purpose of life is therefore this: to conform our lives to the image and likeness of Jesus, to be obedient to his commands to love God and each other with sacrificial love, and to demonstrate that love through our redemptive suffering for the good of each other.