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PRINCIPLE & FOUNDATION I

“On the End of Man”

After the introductory conference that you had a while ago, we are to
consider in this conference a most important truth which he calls principle
and foundation. He calls it principle because just as sciences have their
basic principles which are undeniable truths from which other truths are
inferred, so too in the science of salvation the first truth proposed by St.
Ignatius, is a principle from which one reaches conclusions and resolutions
that plan a life that is good.

He also calls this truth a foundation, because just as in the construction of a

building, the first thing to do, is pour the cement which supports the
building; similarly, on this underlying basic truth, is built not only the
structure of the Exercises, but also the whole moral and spiritual life of the
Christian who strives to save his soul. Hence one easily discovers how
important is the attentive, careful consideration of this great truth; for if a
science is not understood without well-established principles, and as a
building is not constructed without a firm cement foundation, neither will this
Spiritual Exercises be made with lasting fruit if we do not provide and firmly
lay this very solid foundation

Let us, then, examine carefully and penetrate it; for the more deeply we
think on it and instill it into our souls, the more abundant and lasting will be
the fruit we will obtain.
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So, in this conference, I am going to speak to you about the End of Man ---
Man's true purpose of his life here on earth. We will consider here the very
reason of our existence on earth: Why do we live on earth? Why do we
exist?

St. Ignatius tells us that we are created, and live on this earth for a sole
purpose, namely, to praise, reverence and serve God and by this means to
save our souls.

But before I start to develop this very important truth, let me tell you a short
story of how St. Ignatius came to realize it. Know that God works in a
mysterious way; because of His Infinite Power and Goodness, He is able to
draw something good out of evil.

Before his conversion, St. Ignatius was an ambitious, brave soldier, proud
of his noble lineage in the house of Loyola. // When a war broke out in
Pamplona, Spain, the splinters of a canon ball seriously hit him. // So, he
was taken into a hospital. // There he stayed for several months. // During
his stay in the hospital, he lay bored to death, one day. // So, he called for
the latest popular romance stories, which he liked so much. // But, there
were none on hand. // When learning this, Ignatius spoke angrily: "Give
me anything you have then." A nurse gave him two books-- A life of Christ
and the Lives of Saints. // At first, Ignatius threw these books aside, since
he was then a worldly man. // But eventually in a
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Desperate attempt to conquer his boredom and take his mind off the pain
in his wounded leg, he reluctantly began to read.
As he read, a wonderful change took place in the soul of Ignatius of
Loyola. He compared the magnificent lives of Christ and the saints with his
own life, thus, thus far miserably and selfishly spent in the pursuit of the
empty military glory of a professional soldier.@ Ignatius thought of his
boredom over his confinement in this hospital with “nothing to do and no
place to go." And suddenly with the inward light of grace, he saw how
much he really had to do to save his soul and how, whether he liked it or
not, he was going somewhere. It all depended on which place he chose.
For the first time in his life, Ignatius realized to the depth of his soul , a
most important truth that explained to him the real meaning of life. He calls
this truth later on, principle and foundation. What is this fundamental truth
that he understood (He realized that) Man is a pilgrim and is created only
to praise, reverence and serve God and by this means to save his soul.
What was he, Ignatius doing about it now that he learnt that truth; what
was he going to do about it in the future? We know what he did about it.
The sick soldier rose from his bed a sinner, but began a life that made him
a great saint.
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Now let’s consider these words,

FIRST POINT: "God created me."

Have you ever thought of the love, power and goodness of God which is
shown forth in those three words: "God created me?" @ Not many years
ago, certainly less than a hundred, all here present in this room were
nothing. @ We did not exist, we just were not, we were no thing! @ Yet
here we are tonight alive and sitting in this room. We are enjoying
existence and know we will continue to exist forever! I say.”forever", since
by death, life is only changed. We will still continue to exist, but in a new
way i.e. after our death, we’ll still live but without a body.

Besides enjoying existence, we have been also given minds that can soar
beyond the condition of space and time. Our soul is restless and
unsatisfied and hungers for eternal happiness, reaching out to possess
God Himself. # Some men run and rule this earth, with millions of
creatures obeying their commands.

Let us reflect.

Why was there nothing and then suddenly something?

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Why was there nothing and then magnificent man?

Why was there nothing and then lucky I, lucky you?

Did God have to make something? No, God is, was and always will be
supremely and infinitely happy all alone. God doesn't need us at all.
Having created and owned everything and being infinitely content in
Himself, God needs nothing. He is all and is happiness Himself. Was God
perhaps lonely that He sought the company of men when He said: "Let us
make man to our image and likeness"? From all eternity God lives in the
Blessed Company of the Three divine Persons: a Father of infinite power,
a Son of infinite wisdom, a Holy Ghost of infinite love--- three infinitely
lovable Persons in the family of the Holy Trinity. It is absolutely impossible
to find loneliness in that glorious family!

What then, could God want from me to make Him create me? That's just
it! God does not create to get; He creates in order to give! St. Augustine
says, "Because God is good, we exist." God created us to share His
infinite goodness with us, to communicate His divine perfections to us.@
Because goodness is diffusive of itself and tends to pour itself out, on
others.@ God, Who is infinite goodness Himself, created other beings to
pour His goodness into them so that they could in some degree share His
happiness with Him.
So it is the goodness of God is the reason why He created us. (Now lets
us pose another question)
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[Man was created out of nothing & Because of God's love for us] (Now lets
us pose another question) (Now lets us pose another question)

But how did God create all things? From nothing. @ There was first a
void, then at God's will there was something. Know that we cannot
explain the mystery of creation, for we have no experience of creation in
our lives; everything we make, we make out of something.@ Creation is a
truth beyond and above the power of our human intellects. @ (No wonder
why) Infinite power alone can create; our limited minds cannot
understand infinite power.@ Yet God used His infinite power to create me.
@ Yes, but why me? we ask ourselves .@ It is because God loved me. @
This is the mystery of infinite love of God for me. @ He alone knows why
He chose us. @ Yet God gives testimony that His divine love made Him
choose me: "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love,
therefore have I drawn thee", Our Lord said. @ Isn't it wonderful! God
drew us out of the black abyss of nothingness simply because He loved
us. For all eternity He has loved us.

Now, since we were nothing, certainly we had nothing in us to make God

love us. @ Why, then, did He love us ? His infinite goodness alone can
solve this mystery. All we can do is repeat with St. Augustine; "Because
He is good we exist." You see how completely we depend from our very
first beginnings on the power, the love and the goodness of God! "God
created me" means that I exist because God has infinite power over me,
infinite love towards me, and infinite goodness to share with me. I came
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from God; I am proceeding from Him continually as a ray of being from an

infinite fountain of being. As St. Paul says; "In Him we live and move and
have our being." On Him we depend , for our existence, for our life, for
every one of our vital activities. Hence, we belong to God, to God solely, to
God always, completely to God.

OUR DEPENDENCE AND BELONGING TO GOD

Let us always keep in mind that we are the handiwork of God. Our bodies
are formed through those powers and processes of generation with
which God endowed living matter when He called the world and the
things in it out of nothingness.@ Our souls, when there body was once
prepared, came into existence by an immediate "fiat", an act of God's will.
@ Hence we belong to God far more than a slave does to his master, a
subject to his king, a child to his father. @ This explains why we owe God
the greatest loyalty in all the world. @ For God, besides being our owner,
our king and our father, is also our maker. We owe Him a loyalty of a
creature to its Creator, a loyalty in harmony with the intelligent nature
given to us by our Creator.

St. John Marie Vainer was walking one day in a field visiting some of his
parishioners who were tilling their farms. @ There, he heard the birds
singing and he was quite pleased with their songs. @ He remarked to
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his companions: "All nature blesses God and the birds singing his
praises".@ Then he sadly shook his head, adding, "Only man refuses to
love God."

Just as the whole realm of nature and the birds praise God by using their
powers and perfections, so we too must praise God with the powers He
has given us. Irrational creatures like dogs, birds etc. necessarily praise
God, for they have no spiritual soul or free will to choose to act against
their God-given nature.@ But we humans are much higher creatures. @
The Psalmist ask, "What is man that Thou, 0 Lord, are mindful to him?
And the answer given is: "Thou hast made him a little less than the angels;
Thou hast crowned him with the glory and hast set him over the works of
Thy hands."

So, we are "little less than the angels." That means we have an animal
nature; we have vegetative and sensitive life in common with the other
living things on the earth. @ Yet we are also made to the image and
likeness of God. That means that like God we are spirits; we possess an
intellect and free will. Hence when we praise God we must use our
faculties of soul and body in His service. @ We are the only creatures
on this earth who are capable of reading the book of creation, of
interpreting how God has revealed Himself in it and of actively and freely
proclaiming in thought, word and deed the perfections and goodness
which their Creator wished to show forth.

We praise God when we freely acknowledge Him as Our Lord and

Creator. @ We praise Him when we use our minds to learn more about
Him, when we use our free wills to love Him and to follow His laws. @ We
praise God when we use other creature to help us in our journey to Him,
and when we subordinate our love of these creatures to our love of God.
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@ We praise God when we adore Him, when we thank Him for all He has
given us, when we ask Him for favors in our prayer. @ We praise God
when we offer sacrifice or gifts to Him to show Him we love Him and wish
to serve Him. @ We Catholics praise God when we live good Christian
lives every day. @ When we use our faculties to praise, reverence, and
serve God we saves our souls. For to do all these things is to follow after
the most important law of God: "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with thy
whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind and with thy
whole strength." This is indeed the first and the greatest commandment
because it expresses the primary purpose of our creation.

We must all be awakened to this fundamental purpose of our

existence. We are not to live on this earth forever. This is a place of a
pilgrimage; we are on trial. We can either accept God's invitation to love
and serve Him in this life, and thus ensure eternal happiness for ourselves
in the next, or , since we are free creatures, we can reject this invitation.
But remember, God, Who has poured His blessing upon us, is not
mocked. He desires our welfare and salvation, and He does all HE can to
make our path sweet and easy unto it. @ But woe betide those who scorn
His vast mercies! If we do not accept His love, we will have to endure His
justice. @ If we fail to fulfill the purpose of our existence, we shall show
forth the perfection of God in a way that will cause us sorrow for all
eternity. For instead of taking the intimate life and love of God for which
we were created, we will be separated from God with terrible pain for all
eternity. We will mirror in ourselves that divine justice who cannot approve
evil, for since evil freely rejects God, it cannot find a place in the presence
of the divine goodness or in the kingdom of heaven.
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Remember this : God created all men for HImself and heaven; He never
wills any man to be condemned independently of that man's own free will.
Because men are free, they can and do reject God's love. Yet God gives
all men, even the wicked, and the graces and helps necessary to save
their souls. Men must freely accept these graces. Men lose their souls
because they reject God , not because God rejects them. God who has
made us without our consent, will not save us without our cooperation.
God does not sentence us to hell as much as we sentence ourselves.
Just as when the cage is open, the bird flies out into the open air, which it
loves, so also when the body dies, the soul flies out into eternity for which
it was made. But the soul in the state of sin at the moment of death flies
out into the place of sin that it loves, just as naturally as a stone released
from my hand falls to the ground. @ It does this freely, for it has freely
chosen sin. God has not different mood for those who go to hell and for
those who go to heaven. The difference is in us, not in Him. It is like the
Sun when it shines on wax it softens it and when it shines on mud it
hardens it. There is no difference in the sun, but only in that upon which it
shines.

Hence we must follow God in doing what is good and avoiding what is evil.
Like our Lord, we must wish that all men be saved, detesting sin whether
in ourselves or in our neighbor. We must try to root out all evil in ourselves
that we may be bettering conformed to God's holiness. In proportion as we
do this we shall also be working well in others. We Catholics are called
to be the outward expression, the very embodiment of God's goodness to
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man, that through us and in us, all outside the Church may come to know
and love God Who has loved them first. And the crown of this holiness
that we all have to strive is salvation.

Every one of us, especially those who are living in this rich country must
realize the truth of why we are on this earth. We learned from experience
that material success and even good health often- more readily persuade
us to live as if we were not pilgrims traveling on to reward or punishment.
This false sense of security is common to many in this country. Because
they have their own position, their own home and car, and trust that their
insurance and other investments will take care of the future, many men
live as if this life were the ultimate end of their existence. The truth is that
a man's whole life, from birth to death in this planet, is but a very small
fraction of his future, which is eternity. That is why Our Blessed Lord warns
us in these words: "What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world,
but suffer the loss of his own soul?" It is an undeniable fact that so
many people today are guilty of the sin of indifference ; they don't
deny God as much as ignore Him. They are secularists, immersed in the
things of the earth to the exclusion of God. They are too busy to find time
for God and the things of God. They have little time to take sides with God
against the forces of evil. The tension of the hurried world leave the
workingman exhausted and with little time and energy to devote to the
care of his soul. Yet we stop and reflect on how short and transitory this
life is. We realize with St. Paul that “ we have not here a lasting city, but
we seek for that city which is to come.” ( Heb.13 : 14)
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Today, at the start of our retreat, is a good time to check up our lives.

Are we living such that we realize where we are going?

Is the place we are headed for, the right one ?

Are we bored with life because we don’t understand the wonderful destiny for
which we have been made?

So many people today, with secular education behind them that ignores
God, know nothing at all about the purpose of life. Is it not a foolishness to
sail into an awful void, not knowing where one is going, or, whether there
is another shore?

People without purpose in life suffer from anxiety, frustration, and

psychoses. They often try to satisfy the infinite longing of their hearts by
feeding on sinful pleasures. They do not know the true explanation of the
purpose of life; or if they do, they ignore it to their own destruction. When
will they realize that man is composed of soul and body, and that he has to
work to save his soul? When will he realize that the mind is meant to know
all truth; that the body is meant to enjoy its pleasures for the sake of the
soul; and that the world is made to serve the body and soul for the sake of
God?

This is the only true order that banishes boredom, anxieties and fears.
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This is the only order that gives peace, the peace of being a friend and a
child of God. This is the peace , which St. Ignatius found when he realized
and began to live for the sublime destiny for which God created man.

Don’t expect perfect happiness in this world, because creatures cannot

and will never satisfy the infinite longings of our soul. Only God can do
that . Hence don’t waste time chasing the impossible wealth or passing
pleasures. I assure you, you cannot take them with you into eternity. You
should never allow creatures or any person to prevent you from attaining
eternal happiness ? A moderate use of creatures as stepping-stones to
God is in accordance with our end of life. Our friends, the joys of
marriage, the thrill of possessions, magnificent sunsets, masterpieces of
music and art, our industries and the comfort they give us-- all these and
millions of other creatures are gifts of God. @ If we have them God has
given them to us for a single purpose i.e., to help us attain the infinite
Beauty who draws us to Himself through the beauty he has placed in
them. All these are bridges over which we must cross to God. We can
confidently say that the only conceivable reason why God could create us
men and all things, is to diffuse His own inexhaustible perfections upon us,
to shower upon us from His bosom , ( as St. Paul says ) “ the depths of
the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, the depths of the riches
of His goodness and love.

Let us always keep in mind that we were created for God, we belong to no
one but God alone; and that in order to save our souls, we have to praise,
honor and serve Him until the last breathe of our lives.