“I am because God exists.”
While this short sentence may sound simple and obvious, it is, in fact, a profound statement of faith. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
There are those who would reverse the subject and predicate of the formulation above and say instead, “God exists because I am.” In other words, some would prefer to say that God is nothing more than a notion, a myth, the product of the mental activity or psychological needs of human beings. To such people, the universe simply is, and no God is needed either to explain, understand, or account for its existence. By extension, anyone’s personal existence is simply the result of the randomness of natural processes, and every human being is simply the result of circumstances that are not subject to anyone or anything’s control.
From this perspective, God does not exist, or if there were a God, God would be as irrelevant to my personal existence as the Big Bang: simply the nameless, faceless start of a process that culminated in my coming-to-be in time and space. Therefore, my existence has no purpose other than itself. I am because I am, and that is all there is to it. In the end, my existence is purely accidental.
If any purpose were to be found in the fact that I exist, it would have to be of my own devising. I create my own purpose, along with my own values, my own truths, indeed my own reality, out of the raw material of my individual experience, understanding, and will, though I am also conditioned by the social circumstances of my existence. My time in history, my family, my culture, all flow from the fact that no one is their own creator but comes into being in a group setting.
Therefore, life is just what I make of it, as best I can, under the circumstances in which I find myself. My purpose in life is to provide “the good life,” however I define that, for myself and those I care about.
The “God exists because I am” perspective may be familiar to you as the concise expression of a practical as well as theoretical atheism characterizing our epoch. You may be quick, however, to toss such considerations aside in order to get on with the “real business” of life: earning a living and creating a network of relationships for yourself that provide meaning and emotional support, i.e., what we usually call “having a family.”
Or you may be living in such circumstances that these considerations make no sense to you, and they therefore have no impact on you whatsoever. The struggle simply to survive while living in a situation of crushing poverty, for instance, can mean that you have never had the opportunity to be exposed to such ideas or the leisure to explore the meaning of your life thoughtfully at all.
Or you may be not only aware of this perspective, but you are in full agreement with it, either intellectually or, in terms of the way you actually live your life, practically. It does not matter if there is a God or not.
Are you in any one of these categories? Yes? Then we have to talk. I have something to tell you. The Church has something to tell you. Our little family of believers has something to tell you, and we will. And it is good news.
For now, however, I am inviting our “little flock” to join me on a journey. It is a journey inspired by Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), through which we, together, will rediscover not only the joy of the Divine Life given to us by Jesus Christ, but also the joy of sharing that life with all people, including you. We will be praying for and then, by God’s grace, undertaking a missionary transformation in the coming years that will lead us to a deeper knowledge of why God has chosen this tiny, poor, and not a little eccentric company of believers called the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church to be active for Him in North America.
We are convinced that we are no accident of history. We are here because God is here, and we have a job to do.