Father I love you. Test

Man receives a soul willed by God.

Each spiritual soul is created by God, and not by the parents.

 Brother Aurelius, we know that conception is triggered, when a zygote is formed by the union of the male sperm and the female ovum, AND when God creates a soul for this new person. You said no person could be, unless God already knows them. Therefore, we are not accidents. We are not here by some quirk of fate. Indeed dear Brother Augustine, there is no such thing as a quirk of fate in the Kingdom of God.

Loving Father, remember when you said, ‘Before you were conceived in your mothers womb, I have known you, I have called you by name.’[1] So Father, before I had a body and before I had a soul, I was, and I was known to you, I had a name, I was a person, in you I was a spirit. Loving Father, with the prophet Jeremiah, I lovingly say to you:

‘Before I was born you consecrated me.

For it was you who created my being,

knit me together in my mother's womb.

I thank you for the wonder of my being,

for the wonders of all your creation.

Already you knew my soul,

my body held no secret from you

when I was being fashioned in secret

and molded in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw all my actions,

they were all of them written in your book;

every one of my days was decreed

before one of them came into being.

To me, how mysterious your thoughts,

the sum of them not to be numbered!

If I count them, they are more than the sand;

to finish, I must be eternal, like you.

O search me, God, and know my heart.

O test me and know my thoughts.

See that I follow not the wrong path

and lead me in the path of life eternal.’

The Church teaches that, “. . . every spiritual soul is created immediately by God, it is not produced by the parents and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.”[2]

Because of my experience, I confirm this  as a fact and a reality, for:

1. I (my soul) my soul did not perish when I was separated from my body, and

2. my body was useless without my soul, and

3. I, as a person (not as a human but as a person was entire and complete in that separated state, and

4. the body must one day be reunited with the soul, since these two (body and soul) were made for one another and are incomplete when separated. Since they are incomplete when separated, the soul can only rejoice as an incomplete entity and consequently will not know full felicity until reunited with the body. Those wiggly things in my spirit, are they to search for my brain forever, never to be put to use use? And the energy-cells, will they pulsate forever for nothing? And the mantle, will it never have members or a body again to activate with my intellect? Obviously, the body too, now nothing but a trace of dust is also very incomplete.

5. I know from this experience, it was easy for the soul to swiftly exit from the body, it was just as simple for the soul to swiftly return and occupy the entire body, in a fraction of an instant. More on this later.

Our spirit (created in the image and likeness of God) and our soul, was made for the body and the body was made for our spirit and our soul. They must remain as one forever, else, the soul created to animate a body with my spirit to guide it, would have a mantle and energy-cells forever, without any of them ever being of use again. My body created for my soul, would be dust forever. This is not the way God does things.

“Brother Aurelius, would you like to comment on this?”

-Gladly.-

“What we say is, that the God who, even according to Plato, does impossible things, will do this. It is not, then, necessary to the blessedness of the soul that it be detached from a body of any kind whatever, but that it receives an incorruptible body. And in what incorruptible body will they more suitably rejoice than in that in which they groaned when it was corruptible? For thus they shall not feel that dire craving which Virgil, in imitation of Plato, has ascribed to them when he says that they wish to return again to their bodies.(1) They shall not, I say, feel this desire to return to their bodies, since they shall have those bodies to which a return was desired, and shall, indeed, be in such thorough possession of them, that they shall never lose them even for the briefest moment, nor ever lay them down in death.” [3]

Brother Aurelius continues:

“God created man in the image of himself, in the image and likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them.”

“Brother Aurelius, can you elaborate on this please?”

-I will try, like I said:-

“God, then, made man in his own image. For he created for him a soul endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all the creatures of earth, air, and sea, which were not so gifted. And when he had formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and had willed that his soul should be such as I have said, whether he had already made it, and now by breathing imparted it to man, or rather made it by breathing, so that that breath which God made by breathing (for what else is "to breathe" than to make breath?) is the soul.

He made also a wife for him, to aid him in the work of generating his kind, and her he formed of a bone taken out of the man's side, working in a divine manner. For we are not to conceive of this work in a carnal fashion, as if God wrought as we commonly see artisans, who use their hands, and material furnished to them, that by their artistic skill they may fashion some material object. God's hand is God's power; and he, working invisibly, effects visible results.

But this seems fabulous rather than true to men, who measure by customary and everyday works the power and wisdom of God, whereby he understands and produces without seeds even seeds themselves; and because they cannot understand the things which at the beginning were created, they are skeptical regarding them as if the very things which they do know about human propagation, conceptions and births, would seem less incredible if told to those who had no experience of them; though these very things, too, are attributed by many rather to physical and natural causes than to the work of the divine mind.”[4]

“Hmmm. God's hand is his power, this is worthwhile remembering. As our spirit scans this incredible universe we live in and see each other, his wondrous works, the planets, the oceans, the fields, the clouds, the rivers etc. we see his power, his Hand... we see the Holy Spirit in action. Thank you Brother Aurelius. We should also remember that you said, to create is to make something out of nothing.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I would like to emphasize once again, that we, you and I, (our spirits and souls) were created from nothing. We will see the effects and consequences of this a little later.

Our spirit, created in the image and likeness of God.

“Brother Aurelius, what does it mean to be created in the image and likeness of God?”

-Brother Raymond,- “ . . . sometimes the meaning is altogether latent, as in Genesis: ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness.’ (5) Both ‘let us make’ and ‘our’ is said in the plural, and ought not to be received except as of relatives. For it was not that gods might make, or make after the image and likeness of gods; but that the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit might make after the image of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, that man might subsist as the image and likeness of God. And God is the Trinity. But because that image of God was not made altogether equal to Him, as being not born of Him, but created by Him; in order to signify this, he is in such way the image as that he is "after the image," that is, he is not made equal by parity, but approaches to Him by a sort of likeness. For approach to God is not by intervals of place, but by likeness, and withdrawal from Him is by unlikeness.” [5]

“Brother Aurelius, you made two points that are truly striking. First that we are made in the image of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the image and likeness of God. Secondly, we become more the image and likeness of God as we become more like God, and less the image and likeness of God as we withdraw from Him by unlikeness. Obviously it is our spirit that becomes more or less like God by our likeness or our unlikeness.”

Loving Father, you said, ‘Let Us, meaning You, your Son and the Holy Spirit, create man after our image. But dear God, you are Love.[6] You Father are the will to Love, and so you are the loving will of God. Your Beloved Son speaks Your will, so he is the loving word of God, and you Lord Holy Spirit, are the loving Hand of God, the loving Hand of a power that responds to the will and the word of God.[7]

Since my soul is made in God’s image, my blessed calling is, to be God's Love, to will God's Love to God, to will God's Love to me and to my neighbor, to speak God's love to God, to speak God's love to me, to my neighbor and to bring God's love into action, to God, to me and to my neighbor.

“To the king of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”[8]

Soul united to body as its form?

“Brother Thomas, when something is united to something as “its form,” it seems to me that there is nothing that can be more united than that. What divine creation, that flesh and blood is contained in a “form,” which form (our soul) is responsible for all our bodily operations.”

-That is so true Brother Raymond, but... some people have said,- “ . . . the intellectual soul is incorruptible. Therefore it is not properly united to a corruptible body.”

-Others have said,- “ . . .the soul should be united to a most subtle body, to fire, for instance, and not to a mixed body, still less to a terrestrial body.”

-Believe it or not, others have said, - “ . . . it (the soul) should not be united to a body which is composed of parts belonging to various species.”

         -My response to the question, “Whether the intellectual soul is properly united to such a body?” is as follows.-

         “Since the form is not for the matter, but rather the matter for the form, we must gather from the form the reason why the matter is such as it is; and not conversely.[9] Now the intellectual soul, as we have seen above (Question [55], Article [2]) in the order of nature, holds the lowest place among intellectual substances; inasmuch as it is not naturally gifted with the knowledge of truth, as the angels are; but has to gather knowledge from individual things by way of the senses, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii). But nature never fails in necessary things: therefore the intellectual soul had to be endowed not only with the power of understanding, but also with the power of feeling. Now the action of the senses is not performed without a corporeal instrument. Therefore it behooved the intellectual soul to be united to a body fitted to be a convenient organ of sense.

         Now all the other senses are based on the sense of touch. But the organ of touch requires to be a medium between contraries, such as hot and cold, wet and dry, and the like, of which the sense of touch has the perception; thus it is in potentiality with regard to contraries, and is able to perceive them. Therefore the more the organ of touch is reduced to an equable complexion, the more sensitive will be the touch. But the intellectual soul has the power of sense in all its completeness; because what belongs to the inferior nature pre-exists more perfectly in the superior, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. v). Therefore the body to which the intellectual soul is united should be a mixed body, above others reduced to the most equable complexion. For this reason among animals, man has the best sense of touch. And among men, those who have the best sense of touch have the best intelligence. A sign of which is that we observe "those who are refined in body are well endowed in mind," as stated in De Anima ii, 9.”[10] 

God is Love.

“Father, the sole purpose of my spirit for being, the only reason I am here, the only reason I have a life, the only reason I have this marvelous body, the only reason I have all these things and eternity, is to be what you made my spirit to be, to be Love like you Father.

Father, you ask nothing else of me. The sole purpose of my spirit is, not to love but to BE Love. You, Love eternal, have created my spirit to be Love. To be Love like you, like your Son and like the Holy Spirit. To be love in my will, in my word and in my actions, as Jesus our Savior and our King teaches us how. How unique and blessed I am, to be your child, in your creation, made in your image, in the image and likeness of Love.

But Father dearest, whom should I love, what should I love and how am I to love? Jesus, your Son, our blessed Brother, Savior and King tells us,

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” [11]

So Father, I whom you made in your Image, in the image of Love, must BE Love and,

for your sake, I must love you, our God, with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind, and,

for your sake I must love self, and

for your sake, I must love my neighbor, as I love you and myself.

Further, I cannot love you Father in isolation of your works. Each and every thing in your creation must arouse my spirit to see You in your love and your goodness. In astonishment and admiration I marvel at, the gentle blue sky, the massive clouds moving tons of life giving water, the living green grass, every blade part of a regal rug for my royal feet, the flowers in their splendor of colors and their exotic fragrances, the insects, grasshoppers, bees, dragonflies, and butterflies, the continents near and far, the planets, all the food the earth produces, oranges, raspberries, the song birds, the weather, wind, lightning and thunder, volcanoes, the heavens, life-giving air, cobras and whales, fishes in the seas and oceans, the sun, brooks constantly scurrying filling the air with their sweet melodious sounds.

Dear Father, in your creation I see your Love, your power, your gentleness, your concerns, your strength, your organization, your science, your musicality, your imagination, your patience, your order, your beauty, and the incredible array of colors in your palette.

Father, through, with and in all your works, I see your blessed Presence, and your happiness in Being Love for us. As I walk in your creation, each day my spirit’s blessed calling is to love you, to lovingly sing praises to you, and to bring glory to your Godhead through life-long acts of love.

“Brother Thomas, have you defined acts of love?”

-Yes Brother Raymond.- [12]

"An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one wills and to the person for whom one wills it: since to love a person is to wish that person good.”

“In other words Brother Thomas, to love as God loves, I, being in his image, the image of Love, my spirit;

a- must will

b- a good from God

c)- to a person.

And, this good must come from God, for only God is good.[13] I must return God's goodness to God, to myself and to others. Wow! Brother Thomas, before I can love (like God) I must will and deliver God's goodness to God, God's goodness to myself and God's goodness to others; is that not so?”

-Yes Brother Raymond.-

“Hence, inasmuch as we love ourselves, we wish ourselves good; and, so far as possible, (we wish) union with that good. So love is called the unitive force, even in God, yet (without implying composition); for the good that he wills for Himself, is no other than Himself, Who is good by his essence, as above shown (Question [6], Articles [1],3). And by the fact that anyone loves another, he wills good to that other. Thus he puts the other, as it were, in the place of himself; and regards the good done to him (the other) as done to himself. So far love is a binding force, since it aggregates another to ourselves, and refers his good to our own. And then again the divine love is a binding force, inasmuch as God wills good to others; yet it implies no composition in God.” (Bracketed words are the author’s.)

-Brother Raymond sorry for the lengthy reply, but that’s the philosopher in me.-

“Brother Thomas, I can never get enough of you. Since God is good, then God the Father is good, God the Son is good and God the Holy Spirit is good.

Since my spirit is made in God's image ‘Love,’ as God's Child I (my will, my word and my actions) must tend towards God’s goodness. I must regard good naturally and universally, whether possessed or not. Brother Thomas, what do you mean when you say, ‘whether possessed or not?’”

-Brother Raymond,-

“There are certain acts of the will and appetite that regard good under some special condition, as joy and delight regard good present and possessed; whereas desire and hope regard good not as yet possessed. Love, however, regards good universally, whether possessed or not. Hence love is naturally the first act of the will and appetite; for which reason all the other appetite movements presuppose love, as their root and origin. For nobody desires anything nor rejoices in anything, except as a good that is loved: nor is anything an object of hate except as opposed to the object of love. Similarly, it is clear that sorrow, and other things like to it, must be referred to love as to their first principle. Hence, in whomsoever there is will and appetite, there must also be love: since if the first is wanting, all that follows is also wanting. Now it has been shown that will is in God (Question [19], Article [1] and hence we must attribute love to Him.” [14]

“Dear Brother Thomas, it is clear then, because God made me (my spirit) in his image, to love, all my energy and emotions must be in loving union with God's will, and (in Him, with Him and through Him) to bring God's goodness to others.[15] In effect this is exactly what Jesus said when he was asked: ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.’[16]

To love another, I am to bring to that Other a good for which God alone is the source (not me) but God; then God the Other and I, share more perfectly a union that is our blessed lot in time and in eternity. This, is Jesus’ prayer for us when He says:

“Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began." I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. ‘I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.’” [17] (Underline is the author’s.)

When I hurt another, when I cause another to suffer, it is because I have not willed them God’s goodness. When God’s goodness is not willed, whatever else I will onto another does not come from God and consequently hurts the other. How terrible a sin this is, to use everything given to me by God, to hurt another.

Dear God, help me to be what you made me to be. Help me to be like you, to be Love, for your sake, for my sake and for my neighbor’s sake.

Life and soul.

Now a mystery. Why, (when I thought I was going to die) why did life leave me one way (up my legs, my torso and through my head and why did my soul and my spirit leave my body another way, from my right side?

I can only conclude that my body’s biological life is a reality different from my soul’s spiritual life. Our soul, being a spiritual substance, has by its very nature eternal life. Our body being flesh and blood, is biological life... animal life. Moreover it is biological life corrupted by original sin. Biological life is indeed a terminal illness.

-Brother Raymond?-

“Yes Brother Thomas.”

-I touched on this matter when I wrote Article four, Question 117 in the First Part of my Summa, Whether the separate human soul can move bodies at least locally?-

“I answer that, The separate soul cannot by its natural power move a body.”

“So Brother Thomas, must biological life be in a body for a soul to move a body?”

-Yes Brother Raymond, as I said earlier:-

“For it is manifest that, even while the soul is united to the body, it does not move the body except as endowed with life: so that if one of the members become lifeless, it does not obey the soul as to local motion. Now it is also manifest that no body is quickened by the separate soul. Therefore within the limits of its natural power the separate soul cannot command the obedience of a body; though, by the power of God, it can exceed those limits.” 

“Brother Thomas, that is true. When I (my soul) left my body, I had no power whatsoever over my body. I now know that biological life leaves through ones head, otherwise consciousness would be the first to go and the toes would be last, somewhat ridiculous. But Brother Thomas, why did my soul exit from my right side, from my rib area? Why did I (my soul) exit from my side instead of from my head?”

Brother Thomas shrugged his shoulders, indicating he did not know.

Is there another form in man besides the intellectual soul?

“Brother Thomas, Is there another form in man besides the intellectual soul?”

-Brother Raymond,-

“If we suppose that the intellectual soul is not united to the body as its form, but only as its motor, as the Platonists maintain, it would necessarily follow that in man there is another substantial form, by which the body is established in its being as movable by the soul. If, however, the intellectual soul be united to the body as its substantial form, as we have said above (A. I it is impossible for another substantial form besides the intellectual soul to be found in man.” [18]

Energy.

God gave our soul its own source of energy. When our intellect chooses a course of action, our motive power (mantle) activates our muscles, which in turn enables the body parts in question carry out its/their respective function/s.  The simple natural desire to stay alive is an act of our will (consciously and subconsciously energizing everything that needs to be energized to do so.

Our spirit and our mind.

Mind is to spirit what organs are to body. My consciousness, my thoughts, my intelligence, my knowledge, my imagination, my memory, my vision... all such faculties exist in my mind and my mind exists for my spirit. As my body members and organs are there to maintain the health and strength of my body, these faculties are there for the health and strength of my spirit. My mind is one with my spirit, and is where my spirit’s intellectual and rational powers are located.

Spirit on the other hand, is to mind, what muscular power is to my body. My will, my love, my faith, my hope, my courage, my determination, my perseverance, my commitment, all these are strengths of the spirit, qualities which enable me to do things.

“Brother Aurelius, I see my spirit as being to the soul what the brain is to the body, with this major difference: “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer.” [19]

-Yes, Brother Raymond. It is not then the soul, but that which is chief in the soul that is called the mind.-[20] “In Psalm 3:4, David says, But you, LORD, are a shield around me; my glory, you keep my head high.  . . . I think that this should be here taken of the human mind, which is not unreasonably called the head of the soul; [21]”

Brother Aurelius, did you not discuss this in your letter to Renatus, when you disagreed with Vincentius’ opinions on this matter?

-Yes Brother Raymond, I wrote,- “(Vincentius) Did you not then understand that there are two somethings, soul and spirit, according as it is said in Scripture, "Thou wilt separate my soul from my spirit"? And that both of them pertain to man's nature, so that the whole man consists of spirit, and soul, and body? Sometimes, however, these two are combined together under the designation of soul; for instance, in the passage, "And man became a living soul." Now, in this place the spirit is implied. Similarly in sundry passages the two are described under the name of spirit, as when it is written, "And he bowed his head and gave up the spirit;" in which passage it is the soul that must also be understood. And that the two are of one and the same substance? I suppose that you already knew all this. But if you did not, then you may as well know that you have not acquired any great knowledge, the ignorance of which would be attended with much danger.” [22] 

Does our body contain our soul?

“Brother Thomas?”

-Yes Brother Raymond?-

“I keep thinking that our body contains our soul.”

-No Brother Raymond, it is the soul that contains the body.-

“It cannot be said that they are united by the one body; because rather does the soul contain the body and make it one, than the reverse.” [23]

This is a good place to know what happens when we touch another person. When we do this, we are actually touching his or her soul, indeed his or her spirit. This is why the other will reply,

“You touched me.” Not my arm, or my shoulder, but me.

This is why any touching of the other without his or her consent is such a deep and profound violation of his or her personhood, indeed it is an invasion into the very depths of his or her being.

On the other hand, how great and wonderful is the loving embrace of one by another, when two spirits willingly and lovingly unite to become one.

Is our soul in each part of our body?

“Brother Thomas, wherever I may be touched, I am conscious of being touched whether it is a hair on my head or on my arm or even if only a raspberry seed on my tooth. I can feel the slightest breeze and can smell the smallest wisp of smoke. Since my flesh is unable to respond to these touches and sensations, does this mean that my soul is in each part of my body?

-Brother Raymond, some great minds have advanced all kinds of arguments on this question.

-Some have said,- “. . . the whole soul is not in each part of the body, that it is not necessary for the soul to be in each part of the body; it suffices that it be in some principle of the body causing the other parts to live, for each part has a natural movement of its own.” (Objection 1.)

-Others have said,- “The soul is the act of an organic body. Therefore it exists only in an organic body. But each part of the human body is not an organic body. Therefore the whole soul is not in each part. (Objection 2.)

-Others have said,- “ . . . the relation of a part of the soul to a part of the body, such as the sight to the pupil of the eye, is the same as the relation of the soul to the whole body of an animal. If, therefore, the whole soul is in each part of the body, it follows that each part of the body is an animal.” (Objection 3.)

-And others still have said,- “. . . all the powers of the soul are rooted in the essence of the soul. If, therefore, the whole soul be in each part of the body, it follows that all the powers of the soul are in each part of the body; thus the sight will be in the ear, and hearing in the eye, and this is absurd. (Objection 4.)

-Wait for it, there’s still more. Others have said,- “ . . . if the whole soul is in each part of the body, each part of the body is immediately dependent on the soul. Thus one part would not depend on another; nor would one part be nobler than another; which is clearly untrue. Therefore the soul is not in each part of the body. (Objection 5.)

Our Brother Aurelius says, “(De Trin. vi, 6 that in each body the whole soul is in the whole body, and in each part is entire.”-

-Brother Raymond,  this is another question for which I can only respond with a fairly long answer. It is a very important question. However I will simply summarize it here. In my Summa Theologica “Whether the soul is in each part of the body?” I said:-

“I answer that,  . . . the soul is a substantial form; and therefore it must be the form and the act, not only of the whole, but also of each part. Therefore, on the withdrawal of the soul, as we do not speak of an animal or a man unless equivocally, as we speak of a painted animal or a stone animal; so is it with the hand, the eye, the flesh and bones, as the Philosopher says (De Anima ii, 1). A proof of which is, that on the withdrawal of the soul, no part of the body retains its proper action; although that which retains its species, retains the action of the species. But act is in that which it actuates: wherefore the soul must be in the whole body, and in each part thereof.” [24]

“Thank you Brother Thomas. You really are fantastic!

At conception, the soul (spirit, mantle and energy-cells) embraces and permeates the zygote cell.[25] At his stage the soul is the form of the zygote cell. Regardless of how the body grows, it will always be contained by the soul and the soul will always be the form of the body. Each part of my body, every cell, even the tiniest hair is contained by my soul, for I cannot be touched anywhere without me being conscious of it. Further, when I left my body I was very conscious of my soul (me) leaving the entire body.”