Jun 4 Wed
Where can I find happiness?
We know that beatitude (heaven, everlasting happiness) is the ultimate end of every man; we all need and want to be happy. The next question is “What are the means to it?” or “How do I fit into it?” Specifically, I will have to ask myself how I should pursue authentic human goods and how I should behave so that I play the role that God intends for me.
The answer is: explicitly and consciously living all the moral implications of Christian faith (with the help of God’s grace) to reach my integral fulfillment in Christ, thereby attaining good.
Thus, man’s happiness lies in fulfilling himself and attaining the end to which he is ordained. The closer he gets to his end, the more intense his resulting happiness, and the greater he rejoices in the good attained. Man’s happiness (beatitude) is directly related to his sense of responsibility in living the implications of God’s will and thereby attaining good.
But this is not the end; the meaning of our life is not only our "self-realization", but love.
On the way there, we are often confronted with our dreams and aspirations, and the vulnerability and chaos with which we face them.
Living as a son of God (or at least trying to) is where you harmonize your big dreams with your own limitations: being aware of this divine filiation gives you a vocation and a sense of mission in your life that pushes you outward and upward.
At the same time, what God asks of you is not to be superman, but to be a son, and that implies frailties, failures, learning, need for help, being very aware that none of this detracts from your dignity or value, and that you can be a son because you have a Father.
What you need is not to live without tension, but to strive for a worthy goal. What you need is not to eliminate tension at all costs, but to feel the call of a higher goal that is waiting for you to fulfill it.
The call to give ourselves to others is reflected in the certainty that the meaning of our life is not our "self-accomplishment", but to put ourselves at the service of love, to go out of ourselves. "The doors to happiness open outwards." The more you give, the more you love, the more you are.
This also has to do with making our talents bear fruit, instead of keeping them idle.
To choose to love, care for, and give oneself to others is to decide how we spend the hours we have been given. And this commitment is not a renunciation of freedom, but its maximum expression: the more we commit ourselves to something great and good, the more our freedom grows.
Avoiding commitment in the name of a false independence empties us; on the other hand, assuming commitment with courage makes us whole. Because true freedom is not the absence of ties, but the capacity to love with all that we are, even in our fragility. And man’s fulfillment is through commitment to love.