The Purpose of Life

"Faith seeks understanding": it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens " the eyes of your hearts" to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so the Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood." In the words of St. Augustine. "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand the better to believe."

One of the difficult tasks in our lives is to set time aside to better understand. With the tugs of things within this world, taking time to understand is often difficult, but no less important. In my life there have been far, far too many hours that have elapsed without attributing what was being done by me to the wishes of our Creator. When we better understand that every aspect of our life should be devoted to better know Him, love Him, and serve Him, then such recognition will bring our thoughts to Him more often. The struggle just to know Him better is never-ending.

Another reason to better understand is a longing to better know divine truth. Jesus himself told us that He was the way, the truth and the life. When we better understand that which He taught us through Sacred Scripture, we better understand truth. We also better understand truth through the Christian doctrine of our Catholic religion, which we refer to as Tradition. In my opinion, we also better understand through other means that increase or strengthen the gift of faith He gave us. These means include prayer and meditation. Why they increase our understanding of the truth is somewhat of a mystery to me, but nevertheless I believe they do. It may be that prayer and meditation increase my soul's intelligence or understanding of divine truth.

I do know that my human brain will die when my body dies and it will be my immortal soul, without my body, that continues on until the final resurrection. Thus, I wonder and tend to believe that it is my immortal soul which is the reservoir of divine truth and my faith, but nonetheless it is a mystery yet to be revealed. But, even after the human brain expires, we will have some basis of intelligence in life hereafter, and we will have only our immortal soul to which we can attribute such intelligence.