What's the Point?

             This is part 5 of a series. Part 1 can be found here.

  Most of this series has been spent discussing the problem with today’s society. There is no true love to be found there. People are broken and longing for more. Society continually tries to offer them more. This more doesn’t work, and inevitably, those people end up falling flat on their faces, worse off than they were at the beginning when they had found the longing. They try to turn to what society tells them God is, this nice fuzzy feeling that they can turn to when they’ve had a bad day. This feeling leaves them just as empty as everything else society has turned them towards, and these people, longing for love, turn themselves away from the one thing that can heal them, the one thing that actually works.

                God is Love. 1 John 4:8. God is Love. If we can so easily see that this gaping hole is pretty universal, and can so easily see that nothing on earth is capable of filling this hole, then we must turn to something beyond earth. This longing is greater than anything on earth. This longing goes much deeper. For it to be greater than anything that can be satisfied with human emotion, it must come from something greater than humans. I would posit it comes from God (and for you disgruntled folks out there, please, let me just go with this one uncontested. I can make that the subject of a future post).

                This hole is intentionally placed in our hearts by God. Why? This is something that Catholics are just as bad at teaching as everyone else these days. However, it didn’t used to be the case. The Baltimore Catechism did the best job of teaching this to children of any book I have ever seen. It was used from 1885 to the 1960s, depending on where you were. If your grandparents grew up Catholic, they’ll be able to tell you that I’m paraphrasing this next bit. And then probably be able to give you the word for word version.

                The Baltimore Catechism opens up with a very simple-sounding question. Who made us? God. Simple, right? Well, here comes the next question (actually number 3). Why did God make us? To know, love, and serve Him in this life and to be with Him in the next.

                Woah. Let’s take a step back here. This is a book used to teach elementary school children. The third question they learn? Why we are here. What the world is for. What the meaning of all this is. Countless movies have been made to try to answer that question (and for a review of some of those movies, check out the blog of a good friend of mine here). So many people have fallen into despair, thinking there is no purpose to anything. “Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity,” as the saying goes. There has been a small explosion of people trying to provide answers to this question, and all ultimately boil down to unsatisfying maxims about how each person defines life for themselves. We've seen where that answer puts us. But fifty years ago, every fifth-grade child in a Catholic school knew the answer to this question.

NOTE: I'm not advocating this. This doesn't answer anything.

                Do you realize what this means? To a Catholic, life should have a meaning. It should have a purpose. There should be some sort of goal in mind. What’s the goal? To be with God for eternity in heaven. What should we be doing with our lives now? Getting to know God, beginning to love Him, and doing what we can to serve Him. But what does that begin to look like? That will be the subject of the fifth post in this series.