At some point in our lives we all question our existence. What is the meaning and purpose of life? Why am I here? Who am I? are perhaps questions we have all asked. Each one of us at some stage in our lives looks for true meaning and purpose.

Is the real purpose and meaning of life to be successful and to make a lot of money? Is it to marry and raise a family and have many children? Is it to obtain and accumulate much material possessions – like a nice car, a house, a boat, a motorcycle, to obtain many degrees, travel the world, etc.? Is it to have many friends, or is it to be well known or popular on Facebook/Instagram and get many likes, or to be well recognized and become an influencer on YouTube?

But is this all there is to life? We live and then we die? Is there a no greater meaning or purpose to this awesome gift of life? Even if most of the time, all these things don’t quite fulfill our lives. Why? Because there is something very deep within us that says there is more to life, that there is something greater and meaningful that we are here on earth for. However, what is that purpose then?

In the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus says: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (10:10) and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read: “God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him, and so to come to paradise.” (1721).

There’s a story I remember hearing many years ago from the great master storyteller Megan McKenna about God wanting to hide from his creation. God gathers four of the wisest angels in heaven and asks them where he could hide. After a long silence, the first one says, “You can hide in the moon, they will never look for you there.” God answers, “No, one day man will reach and land on the moon.”

The second angel advises God by telling him, “You can hide under a rock in the deep bottom of the ocean. They will never look for you there. God replies, “One day man will build a submarine and reach the depths of the ocean.

The third angel convinced he had the answer, tells God to hide in the tallest mountain on earth, and says, “They will never look for you there.” God sees the future and tells the angel, “No, man is determined and will reach the tallest mountain on earth.”

Finally, the fourth angel very seriously tells God, “You can hide in the hearts of men and women; they will never look for you there.”

There is a different version of this story “God in Hiding” in the book by Margaret Silf titled, “One Hundred Wisdom Stories.”

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” clearly reminds us, “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”

The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator. (CCC#27).

I always remember the way one of my theology professors, an aged and wise priest, started a summer class by asking, “If Jesus is the answer, what is your question?” Christ is the answer to all of our questions, particularly the deepest questions of human existence. Only Jesus can give our lives meaning and purpose.

As Catholics we ultimately believe that we were created in the imago Dei (the image of God) and that the purpose of human existence is precisely to know and love God in this world and to be with him forever in the next.

In the spiritual life, the question is not what is the purpose of my life? but rather what is God’s purpose for my life? Only in faith are we able to answer like the many saints before us who struggled to know God’s will for their lives.

The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen put it well when he wrote, “For when the curtain goes down on the last day, and we respond to the curtain call of judgment, we will not be asked what part we played, but how well we played the part that was assigned to us.”