Manuela Tulli addresses the great theme of the meaning of life in volume 27 of the «Quaderni del Concilio» series, in preparation for the 2025 Jubilee.
Guided by the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, it invites us to reflect on a fundamental aspect of human experience.
Why me?
Man is grappling with a difficult present and an uncertain future. Death, suffering, poverty, illness, injustice, betrayal, and war bring to mind for all of us some pressing questions: Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of suffering, evil, and death, which continue to exist despite all progress? What will happen after this life?
At every stage of our journey, even with varying intensity and in different ways, such questions stir our hearts and urge us to seek a full and definitive answer. Gaudium et spes strongly emphasizes that this answer is found only in Jesus Christ, who is «the key, the center and the purpose of all human history» (GS10).
The light of Christ
Thus, only Christ gives a full and certain answer to these questions, because there is no scientific discovery or sufficient progress that can fill the sense of infinity present in the depths of every person.
In Gaudium et Spes we read: «Through Christ and in Christ, that enigma of suffering and death, which oppresses us apart from his Gospel, receives light. By his death he destroyed death; by his resurrection he gave us the gift of life, so that we too, becoming children with the Son, may pray in the Spirit, exclaiming: Abba, Father!» (n 22)
Man is a reflection of the mystery of Christ
Man, created in the image and likeness of God, is a reflection of the divine mystery and the mystery of Christ. For this reason, the text tells us that only starting from Christ, the incarnate Word, can the joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, everyday life and plans for tomorrow find a new light. Not in the sense – this is very important – that Christ simply teaches a doctrine about man, the truth about man. But in the sense that he himself, his person – life, works, words –, «fully reveals man to man and makes his supreme vocation known to him».
This requires entering into a relationship with him, living in deep communion with him, and this is possible only if we freely choose it.
The search for the meaning of life is fulfilled through the truth that Christ offers. He is the new man who enables us to discover who we are and where we are destined to go.
