“What is the meaning and purpose of life?” Overture vol. 4, no. 11 © 2023 Felicia Smith. All Rights Reserved.

Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim and (more recently) a former atheist, recently announced her conversion to Christianity.  

Her essay does not discuss her relationship with the Lord as the foundation for her conversion.  Hirsi Ali acknowledges she has a lot to learn.  I think her Sunday worship in church is part of that continuing process.  And as she sits in church, she will be among a community of believers who are grateful for the Lord’s gifts of Mercy and Forgiveness and LOVE.  

Afterall, Christians at every stage of life constantly look for ways to grow closer to the Lord—and that friendship with the Lord blossoms and deepens with each prayer and with each challenge . . . with joy-filled days, trials and tribulations, and heartfelt thanksgiving as they lean on the Lord who walks with them and sustains them!

Hirsi Ali, however, was struck by a void in her atheistic worldview. 

“Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life?”[i]  

For the Christian, we are very conscious that God created us for Himself—so that we can know, love, and serve Him in this world, and live in heaven with Him for all eternity.[ii]  I just summarized one of the initial questions and answers in the Baltimore Catechism that many of us learned back in the day.  The Baltimore Catechism may be old, but the Faith is older still.  

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Pope Saint John Paul II of glorious memory opened the Catechism of the Catholic Church with this statement:  

“The Life of Man—To Know and Love God.”  

“God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.  For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. . . [When] the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior.  In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.”[iii]

Welcome, Ms. Hirsi Ali!

—FS

      . . . And that’s all she wrote!

[i]                 See, Ayaan Hirsi, “Why I am now a Christian,” The Free Press (14 November 2023), available at

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[ii]                 See, Baltimore Catechism (1891) “Question 6: Why did God make you?”

[iii]                See, Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), Prologue ¶ I.1.