What the meaning the life in Catholic?

Answer 1

According to the Catholic Faith, life is a gift from God and tampering with it is a mortal sin. In order to live a more perfect life, a life worthy of God and His image and likenesses, Catholics have rules and mandates that are meant to guide them in every moment of the day. The most important rules of the Catholic Faith are the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament (from their Jewish Heritage) and the Commandment of Love of the New Testament (Jesus' Teachings). These are the main laws that should govern the behavior of a Catholic yet there are many others that stem from these main ones as a way to provide practical advice in every situation. According to Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are: I. You shall have no other God but me. II. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it. III. You shall not take a false oath in the name of the Lord your God. IV. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy. V. Honor your father and your mother. VI. You shall not kill. VII. You shall not commit adultery. VIII. You shall not steal. IX. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. X. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, or wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. The Commandments of the New Testament (Commandment of Love) according to the Gospels according to Matthew (22:37-40) and Mark (12:28-34) are: I. Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might and your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. II. And the second is like to it, Love your neighbor as yourself.

Answer 2

The meaning of life according to the Roman Catholics is complicated, but the jist of it is to "do unto others as you would have done unto you" as Jesus said, and to follow in the steps of Jesus himself in order to obtain eternal life in the Kingdom of God, a metaphor for eternal happiness and salvation.

Catholics, and Christians in general, live to avoid damnation in hell, which is not a firey cell underground (again, a medaphor), hell is the undescribable pain of being separated from God completely for eternity while your soul floats around in agony. Normally reserved for those who have shunned God.

A lesser punishment, for those who have sinned but embrace God, is called Purgatory, which is temporary separation from God until penenace is paid.

Answer 3

Another equivalent way of asking the question is What is the Purpose of Man's Existence?

The answer has been formulated or worded in various ways by saints, theologians and the faithful down the ages, but the essence of each response is the same: to know, love and serve the Lord in this life, and be eternally united with Him in beatitude (happiness) in the next (cf. 1885 Baltimore Catechism, Lesson 1)

Thus happiness, indeed eternal happiness is the meaning of life and purpose for which we were designed.

It is worthwhile to note that the two aspects of a) knowing and b) loving and serving, correspond to the highest faculties of the soul through which we are made most closely in the image and likeness of God, namely a) the intellect and b) the will. It is through the proper use of these highest faculties in accordance with God's will that we can find the supreme beatitude (happiness) for which God created us. Indeed, as saints and theologians have pointed out over the centuries, Who better than God-omniscient knows best how we should use our faculties of intellect and free will to achieve happiness?

As the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Churchstates:

God himself, in creating man in his own image, has written upon his heart the desire to see him. Even if this desire is often ignored, God never ceases to draw man to himself because only in God will he find and live the fulness of truth and happiness for which he never stops searching. (Compendium, ch. 1, no. 2)

The purpose for which God designed the intellect is to grasp truth, and the purpose for which God designed free will is to strive toward what the properly formed conscience grasps as good.

Thus truth and goodness are what we are designed for - indeed we are designed by God to receive Truth in the greatest splendor possible, and Goodness in its greatest fulness possible. By receiving and transmitting the greatest measure of Truth and Goodness possible, we fulfill the greatest potential for which we are designed, thus finding happiness.

This greatest Truth and Goodness, however, is found in none other than Christ Jesus who tells us:

I am the way and the truth and the life. John 14:6 NAB

That is, Jesus reveals that He Himself is the ultimate Truth which our intellects are designed to know, and that His way and His life are the Good which our free wills are designed to choose, in order that we might find happiness.

As St. Augustine says,

magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde...fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. (Confessiones I, 1).

That is,

You are great , O Lord, and greatly to be praised...You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you. (Confessions I, 1).

REFERENCES

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Washington, D.C.: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2006).