Here's a link to the first sermon in the series, by Br. David Vryhof: "Praising God: Our True Vocation." And, here's a sample.
In the Rule of our Society, we echo that truth when we say, “Human beings were created to bless and adore their Creator and in the offering of worship to experience their highest joy and their deepest communion with one another. In our fallenness we continually turn in upon ourselves to seek fulfillment without self-offering. We squander on lesser things the love which is due to the one source of all being” (SSJE Rule, chapter 16).
It’s not about us. It’s about God, who created and redeemed us, and who sustains our life day by day. We have been created by God and for God, and we will find our deepest joy and satisfaction when we live in union with God.
One of the early Church Fathers, St. Irenaeus, commenting on Genesis 1:26, suggests that the primary meaning of humanity’s being made in the image of God is that God has made humanity sufficiently like himself for communion between God and human beings to be possible. Being created in the “image” of God, says Irenaeus, expresses the possibility of human communion with God. Being created in the “likeness” of God stands for the existential or moral similarity with God into which humanity is to grow as it actually lives in communion with God. We are to become more and more like God as we live in union with him.
“Our hearts are restless, O God, until they find their rest in You.” (St. Augustine)
