Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
If you were to approach a born and bred Catholic aged over 65 or 70, and you would ask them, "Why did God make you?" almost certainly, in most cases, they'd probably respond with these words: "God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him forever in the next." And they'd be right, of course; that's the correct answer. It's from the Baltimore Catechism, which a lot of Catholic students were educated in back in the day. This answer is so important and perfect and beautiful because it gives us the end—the purpose for our existence, for our creation—the goal, the end for which we are made. And it's really important in life to have this end on our mind. This question, "Why did God make you?" 
The answer is one of the first ones in the catechism because it's fundamental, it's foundational for the rest of the Christian life. It's something that you'd have always in some way on your mind, at least on the back of your mind, so that it can inform all of the decisions that you make, especially when you have to choose between different things. To be able to choose well, you have to know what the end that you're choosing for is. Of course, it's not like that's all you think about, but it's always got to be there. 
It's sort of an analogy you could think of is if you're driving somewhere to a destination, even though you say, if I'm driving tomorrow, Father Ignatius and I have to drive to New York, but it's not like the whole time you're saying, I'm going to New York, I'm going to New York, I'm going to, but it's always there. If you ask him any time, where are you going?
I'm going to New York. And every time he has to make a decision, he knows he's going to New York, so he has to take this road or that road. And that's sort of like our life decisions, all of it. We have to always have in the back of our mind that truth of what our end is, to know, love, and serve God in this world and be happy with him forever in the next.
So, there's two parts, obviously, to this end. It's one end, one purpose, one goal, but two parts. The second one is to be happy with Him forever in the next—that's heaven. And the first part is to know, love, and serve Him in this world. And normally, the rule is that to get to the second, you have to pass through the first. That's a general rule.
Of course, there are exceptions, in God's grace, we believe. But the rule is that. So we have to aim to know, love, and serve Him in this world in order to be happy with Him forever in the next. This end is so important, and like with any end, there are always means to achieve that end, to arrive at that end. One of the means that God uses are miracles to help us to better know Him, to have faith in Him, to love Him and serve Him.
And we see that in the Gospel today. Peter's mother-in-law is not feeling well; she's got a bad fever, and Jesus comes and heals her—performs a miracle—and she gets up and serves Him. She serves Jesus Christ; she serves God. And so we see that. That's beautiful, the way it works out, because it shows us that miracles are one example. 
And this is sort of in general: miracles are not an end in themselves; they're a means to help us to achieve our end. That's why I would say God doesn't always perform miracles when we ask, because it's not always necessary or convenient for our end, for our good end. And so it's important in life to look at miracles in that way and other means that God uses for our end as means, and not get caught up in them. Because I think it's a temptation sometimes to transform means, these instruments, these things that God uses to help us reach our end, into ends in themselves. And so we can get focused. Even though miracles are really good and important—I love miracles, 
St. Charbel, my patron saint, is one of the greatest miracle workers—sometimes we can get too infatuated with the miracle, caught up in the miracles, and just go from one miracle to another, and look at that, and look at this miracle, and look at these scientific evidences, and how it proves the truth of God's existence and divine intervention, which is really important to look at. But if you focus just on that and lose the point of growing in the knowledge and love and relation and serving of God, then it sort of defeats its purpose. It's not really reaching the end for which that means was given to us—the miracle. And that's something we should be aware of in our spiritual life.
And even more, another means that God uses—we see, and this is probably more problematic and more common—is the instrument of His ministers, of His preachers or leaders in His Church. Sometimes they are instruments of God to speak His word, to preach. You know, the prophets were all made to be priests, prophets, and kings in baptism. But in a special way, the ordained ministers of the Church, especially bishops, hold the highest office of being prophets and speaking God's word. So they're instruments of God to help us to know, love, and serve God in this life. 
But again, like we saw in the first reading, sometimes the Christian community, people, ourselves, can cling to the means, to the instrument, and lose sight of the end—Christ. And this can cause division. The same point is made in the first reading, where St. Paul is correcting the Corinthians for that reason, because they're getting caught up in "I'm with Paul," "I'm with Apollos." You can think of examples in our own day when we get caught up with different leaders: "I like that guy," "I don't really agree with what he always says." And it's like, okay, but, you know, it's good to have opinions and be critical to a degree, but that's not what's essential. What's essential is not them; what's essential is Christ and His Blessed Mother and our faith—the truth of our faith and the way we live our faith.
So, it's just a call for us today through the readings to reflect on our lives, but I think really important is just a reminder to keep that end in sight, you know, always. In every decision we make, we are made to know, love, and serve God in this world, and be happy with Him forever in the next. So, it really helps us, especially in difficult times, even in small things, in our decisions. Is that going to help me know, love, and serve God better, to do this or to do that? And so it's a little call for us to reflect today on the end for which we are made, and the means for us to arrive there, and the relation between the two.
We ask our Blessed Mother to intercede for us. She always had the end very well in mind, and we ask her to help us to keep that good balance between the two, and to accompany us on our journey to arrive safely and with great success at the end for which we are made.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.