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Francis Phillips's avatar

Thank you, as always, for a thought-provoking essay.

The older I get (I shall be 80 at the end of this year), the simpler my response becomes to the 'divine discontent' that you highlight here. The Christian response that you quote from the old penny catechism says it all: we are on earth 'To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him...'

When we come to know God in the Person of Christ, we cannot but love Him and seek to follow him. Even if the work we do is monotonous and hard, it isn't pointless if we do it with love, especially so if we have a family to support. The anomie of modern man arises from one thing only: lack of a spiritual meaning to his life. We are all created spiritual beings; if our craving for the divine is not satisfied we will never be truly happy or contented.

Poor Virginia Woolf. She lived within a cultured, intellectual circle of high-minded atheists her whole life; Mrs Dalloway's anxiety is the result.

I have four atheist friends, all men of intellectual achievement who lead honourable lives according to their lights. But there is a vital ingredient missing; so they are all at an impasse of sorts about the ultimate purpose of existence. As you sometimes point out, for all its material discomforts and privations which are quite beyond our modern imagination to envisage, life in the medieval world was more contented than our own - simply because medieval man knew what he was about. Modern man doesn't.

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Fr. Scott Bailey, C.Ss.R.'s avatar

The catechism response as to why we exist sums it up simply and perfectly. What is unfortunate is that so many reject it. Even Catholics.

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