That Is to Praise, Glorify, and Serve Him and by These Means to Achieve His Eternal Destiny
(This is the primary and fundamental aspect of my life.)

I exist…

What is the origin of this existence? Its meaning? Its worth? This is the capital question that I should ask myself as a human being.

The Bible, particularly the New Testament, answers it for me this way:

(1) Man was created by God in his image and likeness. Genesis 1:26–27: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves.’”

“Because God is love” (1 John 4:16): man therefore is made to love with his heart, which is like God’s.

(2) God created man to love him with all his heart, all his mind, and all his strength.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9: “‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Take to heart these words that I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.’”

Man loves God first of all through praise, adoration, and service. It is along these lines that I should order, that is, regulate, all of my existence.

(3) But love means more than this. Love of its very nature seeks union. God created man out of nothing to make him God’s adoptive son in Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ.

God’s plan therefore consists in enabling us to participate here on earth (by faith and grace) and for all eternity (in a more intimate friendship) in the life of the Trinity.

“My dear people,” St. John writes (I John 3:2-3), “we are already the children of God, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.”

At the Last Supper, after his farewell discourse and priestly prayer (John 13:31–17:26), it is Jesus himself who shows us the meaning of our existence in all of its magnificence. Let us relish words such as: “On that day you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. . . . If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:19, 23). “I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one” (John 17:21).

We can deepen our appreciation of God’s “hidden plan he so kindly made in Christ” for us by reading the first three chapters of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: everything comes from God’s love; everything should be returned to God in love.

(4) I learn the answers to these questions through Jesus’ response to the lawyer who asked him: “Master what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25), or from the scribe who asked him, “Master, which is the greatest commandment of the law?” (Matt 23:34–40; Mark 12:28–34). He said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second
resembles it: You must love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole law, and the prophets also.“ And, according to Luke, Jesus said, “Do this and life is yours” (Luke 10:28).

At the end of these reflections it would be well to pray on the Our Father, the Magnificat, or simply on our “Act of Charity” according to the second or third method of prayer.