I’d like to consider 5 points this powerful, profound line of scripture. …“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”
First, we’ll consider how it speaks to what we are. Secondly, what we are not. Thirdly, what that means in daily life. Fourthly, what it requires of us. And finally, its ultimate import.
So, firstly, this line speaks of who we are. God’s imperishable spirit is in us. We are endowed by God with what philosophers, theologians, poets, and scripture call “a soul”, an immortal, rational soul. We are made by God with a body and a soul.
Harkening back to the very first book of the bible, we read in Genesis, that in contrast to all the other elements of the created universe: the stars, the rocks, the plants, the animals, God uniquely breathed life into the man and woman. in divine image he created them; male and female he created them. When God looks upon us, he sees a reflection of Himself, we are made in God’s very image and likeness. And therefore, we are capable of understanding the order of the universe. We possess the powers of intellect and free will, and the use of reason capable of recognizing our purpose of pursuing the true, the good, and the beautiful.“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”
Secondly, then, we are reminded of what we are not. Since, we have God’s very spirit within us, we are not irrational animals, we are not some consequence of random cosmic forces, we are not bound to follow every urge, appetite, or impulse we experience. Nor are we merely mortal—we share something of the immortal nature of God. Nor, are we inconsequential to God, we are not accidents. Our existence is part of God’s plan. And there is something about us that loveable even when we have misused our free will in sin.
In the Gospel today, the Son of God, Jesus, sees Zacchaeus in the tree. What does he see when he sees Zacchaeus? Does he see a cheat, a crook, an extortioner, a collaborator with the foreign enemy? Zacchaeus was all these things. But Jesus, lover of souls, saw something deeper than all of Zacchaeus’ physical and moral shortcomings—something that was loveable in Zacchaeus and is loveable in all of us, something worth dying for.
“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”
Thirdly, what this means for all of us in day to day life, is that if we believe that we have God’s imperishable spirit within us, and by the way, so does every other human being on this earth, if we believe that, we must treat ourselves and others with dignity and respect, we must foster what Pope Paul VI called a “civilization of love”, what Pope John Paul II called the “culture of life” that cherishes and protects every human person from the moment of conception until death.
The very essence of our moral theology and our call to social action is the dignity of every human person—the responsibility we have for our souls and that of our neighbor. To neglect one is to neglect the other.
“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”
Fourthly, what does this require of us? What does this entail? If our soul has value in God’s eyes, we must cultivate and care for it. We are usually pretty good at caring for our bodies. Most of us don’t totally indulge every bodily appetite. Most of us observe some semblance of eating right, exercise, caring for our bodies when they become ill, diseased, or broken down.
But, the care our souls, on the other hand, is certainly not one of the hallmarks of our culture. And yet it is the lack of care for the immortal soul which is at the root of most of our exhaustion, unhappiness and societal evil. We pursue so many idols: wealth, bodily pleasure, and power, and our lives our sorrier for it.
I am reminded of a powerful article written by Bishop Lennon, who passed away this week. Bishop Lennon wrote how Christians, rather than pursuing idols the idols of the world are to place “God at the center of our weekly schedules and activities, meals, chores, conversations, parenting, work, vacations, civic responsibilities, decisions, problems, crises accomplishments, and losses.” By doing so, the bishop said, “our whole lives become charged and changed by God’s presence”. Rather than unhappiness and exhaustion from pursuing idols and neglecting our souls, our life becomes filled with power and patience and resiliency and joy even amidst our many trials.
To assist us in making sure we are taking the time to cultivate our souls and placing God at the center of our lives, the Stewardship committee has put together a wonderful Time Commitment Card. We invite you to take one of these Commitment Cards home with you and pray with it throughout the week. How might God be inviting you to make a greater return of your time to Him that he may strengthen you and speak to you?
After praying with the Commitment Card throughout the week, next weekend we will collect the cards and place them before the altar. So please take a commitment card home with you today, they are located at the ends of the pews. Pray with them, ask God to help you commit to some healthy prayer habits that will nurture your soul, and bring them back to church next weekend. No need to put your name on the card or anything, your commitment is between you and God.
God is a lover of souls and wants to see your soul flourish in virtue and grace. As, St. Paul writes in our second reading, “that our God may make you worthy of his calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith”
Finally, why does any of this matter?
It is clear that we have the imperishable spirit of God within us. God made us to live forever, to be united with Him forever in eternity.
But scripture is also clear that what we do with our time and our choices and our free will matters—what we do with that imperishable soul matters.
For those who die in God’s grace and friendship, who have become perfectly purified from sin, their destination, immediately after death, is heaven. These are the saints, those who names we know, and those whose names we don’t, whom we celebrated in a special way on All Saints Day.
For those who died in God’s grace and friendship, but have been imperfectly purified of sin, that is, who have not given the whole of their lives and minds and wills and souls to God in this life, that’s most of us, we are destined for heaven, but have some purification after death in Purgatory. We pray in a special way for the souls in purgatory during this month of November.
And those who freely choose to live and persist in grave sin, those who allow the powers of selfishness and sin to consume them in this life, their imperishable soul will suffer what Jesus himself calls “the unquenchable fire”.
By the way, I will be taking up for my second Friday faith formation these topics of heaven, hell, death, soul, and purgatory. So, consider joining us in the school cafeteria for a discussion of these topics on friday at 7pm.
Knowing these truths is Good News. For with God’s help we can preserve our souls from evil and open our souls to the life God wishes to give us. God is the lover of souls and invites each of us, urges us through His Word, to concern ourselves with what matters most in life, the cultivation of our souls in grace, in virtue, in imitation of the Good Shepherd, the Son of Man who came to seek and to save what was lost for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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