Q. Why did God make you?
A. 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.
If you’re old enough to have been taught “catechism” as a child, you may remember this question and answer from the Baltimore Catechism.
It’s about our purposes—and their priority is important:
Our first purpose is knowledge, not distilled, abstract knowledge but practical, functional knowledge. The first challenge of our lives is to get to know God, to really get to know God, as best we can.
This means clear thinking about God all during our lives—it’s a never-ending task. As a child, we think about God in a childish way; as a mature adult, we think about God in a mature, adult way. It’s a life-long practice and challenge for each of us.
Our second purpose is love, not necessarily a passionate or deeply emotional feeling but definitely a persevering choice to seek to know and trust God better and better.
This means subordinating our will to God’s will, constantly seeking to enjoy God, and striving to make God the center of our lives—another life-long practice and challenge for each of us.
Our third purpose is service, a total and deep commitment to obey the will of God as best we understand it, especially in expending ourselves for others.
This means, as St. Ignatius of Loyola said, “. . . to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your [i.e., God’s] will.”
Just as our knowing gradually changes and develops as we grow older and are more experienced, so does our loving and serving.
It’s okay that our understanding of our purposes changes as we age. We gradually lose some of the dynamism and spontaneity of our earlier years—but no matter what, we still are called to know, love, and serve God as best we can.
Our report card about how we live our lives may not be all stars, but it’s important that, no matter what stage of life we’re at, we’re still getting an “A” for effort!
In all this, beware of comparing yourself to others. Every person is unique. You’re not exactly the same as anybody else. God gives different gifts to different people, and different challenges as well, and has different expectations for each one of us.
St. Francis de Sales, in his “Introduction to the Devout Life” explained all this well:
When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling.
. . . devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman.
. . . devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.
God made you to know, to love, and to serve, and you have to do it as best you can—your way, not mine!
31 July 2022