Picture in your mind a spiritual power that can observe the material world and come up with ways to change it and make it better (tools, shelter, etc.). This spiritual power can create beautiful sounds, using cat gut for strings, and plucking them in various rhythms (music). It can observe the goodness and proper order of things . . . and greatest of all, it can love and serve the one who created it.
Now picture a way for this spirit to live in the material world; a home to live in here on earth. What would that “spiritual container” look like? It’s that miracle called the human body.
And that friends, in very rough outline, is what makes a human being. It is the inseparable union of body and spirit that exists nowhere else in creation and is called MAN. Two partners are needed to bring this creature about; one to provide the “container” – – – parents. And one to provide the knowing spirit – – – God.
Catholic theology tells us that it’s the spirit (soul), that gives us the potential to be a “person”. Your mother and father didn’t know who you were when you were born. Mom knew she brought forth a girl or a boy. That’s all they knew. It will take a couple years for parents to know “who this child is”. But God knew you, and He gave you the soul that makes you . . you!
But let’s not forget the body, for it is an equal partner in making a human being. Again, theologians (St. Thomas Aquinas) tell us that the body is the visible “form” of the soul. The body is what gives the soul its brain to think, hands to grasp, eyes to see, lips to speak.
Now there’s a mystery. The body is mortal. It will die. The soul, like its maker, is immortal. It will never die. So what does the soul do without a body to carry out its activity?
The two need each other to be that union of body and spirit that makes a human being. When the body gets buried in the ground, some have imagined the soul flying off to heaven to become an angel.
That’s not what happens. God wanted you to be a human being, not an angel. You will always be human. So what happens then? The body goes into the ground . . . and the soul has lost its home! Without each other to complete a human person,where are we?
Science doesn’t know. You and I don’t know. Nobody knows. Oh dear.
Except . . . . there’s this guy named Jesus of Nazareth. God, the Creator of Heaven and earth, became a human being. Jesus is the human body and soul of God. So being human, God lived a truly human life. He was born of Mary, grew to manhood, suffered, AND DIED. Just like we will. His body was buried (for like ours, it was mortal).
But then . . . “God raised him up, releasing him from the throws of death.” Acts 2:24. And “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you (by Baptism), the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you..” Romans 8:11.
This is why Jesus was raised body and soul in the Resurrection. His body and soul needed to be united in that union we call Jesus. So too, you and me. In the Resurrection we will be given a “new body, a glorified body.” No longer subject to the limitations of space and time, we will look upon the face of God from our bodily place in the Resurrected Body of Christ.
Fully human in a way even better than our lives here on earth.
Thought you’d like to know.
Fr. Tim
