WHAT AM I LIVING FOR?

WHAT IS THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF LIFE? This is the all-important question for every human being; for what wil all the world beside profit us if we miss the whole purpose of our existence, if we fail to attain our true destiny?

Both reason and revelation tell us that God is the author and the last end of our life. Being creatures of God, the work of His hands, we belong to him asolutely. "In Him we live and more and are" (Acts 17, 28). The last end of man can be nothing else but God from whom he came, "for of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things (Rom. II, 36). Hence the purpose of our life is to do the will of God, as it iswritten in indelible characters in every human heart, as it was proclaimed on Sinai and on the MOunt of the Beatitudes, as itis manifested in the duties of our state and calling, and as it is made known to us by those who share in God's authority here on earth in the family, theState and the Church.

But our submission to God's holy will must not be founded on servile fear; it must be voluntary, loving and generous self-surrender to His will. Our service must be the service of a soldier who unhesitatingly carries out the commands of his general; but also the service of a child that sees in God his loving Father and his greatest benefactor.

"We are in this world to do the will of God and thereby to gain everlasting happiness in Heaven."

Fr. John Laux, M.A., "Catholic Morality".