To begin, let's take time to reflect on how to obtain our ultimate purpose and happiness.

Whether we realize it or not during our sometimes hectic lives, we were created for a special purpose. Each of us has something unique to accomplish in this life. But all of us have something in common that we were created for – which is a loving relationship with God which begins here and continues after our death.

No matter what our own unique talents, interests, job, family or friends, the ultimate purpose, happiness and meaning of our life that we can possibly have, comes from our relationship with God. The things of this earth and our very lives here on earth are passing by day by day and will eventually end. But God and our relationship with Him while beginning in this life continues forever. Since God is the greatest good that exists, our relationship with Him is also the greatest good we can possibly have. Compared to this relationship, nothing else really matters in the long run, so this makes what we do regarding this relationship of utmost importance for us.

This class will focus on attaining our highest good which is this relationship with God our creator.

So what is our ultimate purpose?

In the 1950s when I was a child, we memorized catechism questions and answers as part of our religious training. The old Baltimore Catechism #1 had a question, which was, "Why did God make you?" The answer was, "God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next." This sums up, in a short sentence, the reason for our existence and our ultimate purpose and meaning of our lives. We also learned that in order to love God we must first know Him... and that is part of what we will be doing in this lesson, taking time to get to know more about God.

In the first couple of lessons, we will also take time to examine what place God currently has in our lives with the goal to examine what place God could and should have, and to commit or recommit ourselves to putting God in the proper place.

So let's start now with taking time to think about what it is that we are ultimately created for and how to reach our ultimate happiness now and forever.

God is our Ultimate Good

Let's begin by taking a closer look at God and what we can know of Him to help us realize that the ultimate happiness we can have in this life and the next is nothing less than God Himself who is all-good. The purpose of this lesson is to help us to come to realize this to such an extent that we will decide, if we haven't already, to make God truly number one (#1) in our lives. Putting God first is the requirement (in fact it is God's first commandment) in order to have all the good things God wishes us to have, the chief among those being God Himself and everlasting life with Him now and forever.

Most of us have many distractions in life, but let's set all those things aside for a moment and recollect ourselves from all our other concerns. Let's really think about and ponder these ultimate questions of life starting with a thought from the Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena:

“Man is placed above all creatures, and not beneath them, and he cannot be satisfied or content except in something greater than himself. Greater than himself there is nothing but Myself, the Eternal God. Therefore I alone can satisfy him...” St. Catherine of Siena

In other words, what we are seeking and what we are made for, whether we fully realize it or not, is God. St. Catherine's dialog (in the quote above) with God the Father points out what is also stated in the Bible, that we were created by God and for God. One way to look at it is that God has created us with a space inside just for Him, like a hole inside of us, that only He can fill and nothing else can fill it. Whether we like it or not, we will never be satisfied with anything less than God to fill the "God-void" inside (as my husband calls it). We can try to fill the place in us that God created for Himself (and most of us have tried) with a spouse, money, career, excitement or even sinful things... And those might distract us for a moment but ultimately, even though some of these are legitimate parts of life, they cannot take God's place. Also all these things change and won't always be with us. For us to have the peace, joy and satisfaction in the lives God created us for, we need nothing less than God Himself as our #1 love and focus.

So let's take a look at just what that means. Perhaps God is already in our lives to a greater or lesser degree. We may believe God exists and pray to Him sometimes (especially when things aren't going well which is maybe why they aren't going well). We may go to church on Sundays and try to live a good life. Or perhaps we have been mostly focusing on ourselves, or careers, spouses, friends or even sinful things and haven't given much thought to God. Perhaps we have gotten off track and now is a time to get back on track.

What does God (who knows everything) tell us about how to achieve our ultimate purpose, happiness and eternal life? As our Creator, He has a lot to say and has told us through his dealings with humans throughout history, through his prophets in the Old Testament and through his son, Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Bible (Scripture) and through the truths handed down from the Apostles (Sacred Tradition).

Let's ponder for a moment what Jesus says about the place God should have in our life:

Jesus has told us in the above Bible passage that the main thing that is required, the greatest commandment, is to love God with our whole heart, whole soul and whole mind and whole strength. In other words, we are to put God in the number one spot in our lives... to make God the Lord of our lives. We will examine this idea more in depth as this is of utmost importance.

Let’s consider HOW to get our priorities, minds and hearts in the right place...We are going to begin with taking a closer look at God and what we can know of Him. (to be continued in the rest of Lesson One).

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