Start Living For Eternity

There can be moments in many people’s lives where they finally have a chance to pause, look around, and ask, “what am I doing with my life?” Perhaps the frenetic pace of moving from one activity to the next has suddenly come to a halt or maybe something so incredibly bizarre or horrifying happens, opening our eyes to the absurdity of a life lived in the gray. 

A life lived in the gray can be comfortable.  It provides a routine and the expectation that as long as we continue to follow the pattern of sleep, work, and enjoying some kind of entertainment, our lives will feel safe as time keeps pulling us towards our eventual deaths.  Hours, days, weeks, and even months can pass by in a blink of an eye as we half-heartedly ponder, “where has the time gone?” 

To be clear, having some kind of pattern or routine in our lives isn’t necessarily bad.  The Church builds her public prayer around a pattern of seasons and hours that can bring great order to a life surrounded by chaos.  Having healthy patterns of sleep and work, leisure and productivity can provide an excellent balance that helps us avoid the dangers of being a workaholic or someone who endlessly and mindlessly consumes content from the internet.  

The problem of living a gray life isn’t found in the pattern itself, the problem comes when we do not know the why behind the pattern.  

When we begin to explore the why, it helps us become more human.  When we ask why we  seek something or choose one activity over another, it shows that we have the power of intentionality in our lives.  Cows and dogs, for example,  can move through the world responding to events around them, seeking food, shelter, or recognizing a need for sleep.  When we mindlessly scroll through social media or endlessly binge through another series on Netflix, we can lose any sense of intentionality and live as if our only purpose is to respond to the stimuli around us.  

As humans, our intellect and will gives us such a freedom to choose what is good - claiming agency over our lives rather than just letting things happen to us.  Our humanness is more obvious when the why of our lives is grounded in intentionality instead of a passive receptivity, that only leaves us room to react to whatever seems to be affecting us most at any given moment.  

Living intentionally by exercising our ability to reason and choose is great, but if we truly want to live our best why, it is essential that we go even deeper.  

When we were baptized, several things happened.  As the basis for the whole Christian life, our baptisms opened the doors to a new life in the Spirit, freeing us from sin, making us members of Christ, and incorporating us into the Church as we become sharers in her mission. (CCC 1213)

During this sacrament, something else happens:

“Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte ‘a new creature,’ an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature, ’member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.” (CCC 1265 )

In baptism, we become a new creation.  

We may have heard this phrase a million times, but what does it really mean?  When we were conceived and brought into this world, it was our humanness that gave us the capacity to freely choose and think; and the more we engaged our intellect and will, the more obviously human we were. When we utilize our capacity to freely choose and rationally think, it brings order and even some sense of happiness to our lives.   In baptism, our humanity is not destroyed, but is instead more closely ordered to what will bring us ultimate happiness.  As we become reborn as children of God, it means that our ultimate end is no longer aimed at oblivion, but is instead directed towards eternal union with our God.  

 When we receive this great gift, it means that we now have a new capacity to cooperate with God in directing our lives to where we ultimately belong.  Through baptism, our entire existence is now ordered towards love.  When we choose against love (that is, when we sin), we do violence not only to the gift that we have received, but also to our fundamental identity as beloved children of God.  If our lives are no longer ordered towards our final union with God, we begin to fall apart - we lose the capacity to bring everything that we are to God… we disintegrate.  

If we live in a way that is contrary to how we were made (or re-made in baptism), our lives begin to lose their meaning and we become directionless. For example, if a hammer is used in a way that is contrary to its purpose and end, it can not only harm the hammer, but also whatever object it is hitting.  Carving a turkey with a hammer would destroy the turkey.  In the same way,  when we choose against love it not only brings harm to others, but it also distorts our own baptismally-driven purpose and end.  

If we want to step away from gray living and into the fullness of life, we need to let our baptisms become our why.  The choices that we make, the patterns and routines that we settle into - all of these things can be animated by the very real change that happened to us in baptism.  

Am I living in a way that reflects my identity as a beloved child of God? 

Are the choices I make grounded not just in the present consequences, but the eternals ones as well? 

Do I see myself and others through the eyes of eternity and not just the failures or disappointments of the present moment? 

Taking time during our daily prayer to meditate on the life-changing effects of our baptisms will do wonders. No matter how long ago it took place, the effects of our baptisms are lasting and just waiting to be explored. Not only will living with a baptismal worldview order and animate our daily routines, but it will also lead us more wholly into the eternal life to which we are called.