Jul 26 2019 22 mins 1
Today we reflect on what the soul needs to live. Just as the body needs food, water and oxygen to live, the soul needs reality. Specifically, the intellect needs to be nourished by reality in the form of truth and the will needs reality in the form of goodness. Without food and water, the body will die. Without reality in the form of truth and goodness, the soul begins to die from a sense that life is meaningless. The intellect receives reality in the form of truth. Therefore, the soul needs to feed on truth to thrive. When the intellect grasps reality accurately – it possesses truth and then the mind is satisfied and can rest. That is why we are restless when we can’t understand something. The intellect rests when it possesses, locks in the truth it wants to understand. The intellect needs to be nourished on reality in the form of truth. We can know reality or truth through our experiences, that is, through science, and we can know reality through reason. But we cant know the answers to the most important questions in life by science and reason alone, such as, where did all the matter in the world come from in the first place, what is the purpose of life, what is the meaning of suffering and what happens after death? These questions go beyond what science and reason can tell us. To know the answers to these things God must reveal them to us, and thankfully he has through His Son Jesus Christ. His teaching is handed down infallibly through the Catholic Church so that we can know with certainty the answers to the most important questions in life. The question is – do you take the time to think about the most important questions in life and to seek the truth through what God has revealed? Goodness The intellect needs to be nourished by reality as truth. The second power of the soul, the will needs and desires reality as goodness. In general we need a number of good things to be fulfilled and happy: food, drink, shelter, safety and security; relationships and friendships, meaningful work, knowledge, beauty, etc… These things – all these realities – are “good” for us, because they help us become “good” (that is, they fulfill us). This is the proper need and desire of the will: realities which are good/complete in themselves and which enable us to become good/complete. But even if a person had all these good things – would we be perfectly happy? No. Because no good thing, and no amount of good things on earth are perfect, they are not lasting, and they can never be enough. We were made for more we were made for union with God. God is the ultimate reality, and the ultimate goal of the human soul. He is the source of all truth and goodness. Created things are really true and good because God made them, and following the trail of created goods and truths leads to God because He’s where they all come from. We need to pursue and possess food, drink, achievement, relationships and the like. But they are like cups and God is the Living Water. We need the cups to drink but without God, the Living Water, the cups are empty and unfulfilling. We’re supposed to pursue the good things of this world in such a way that it leads us towards the ultimate Truth and Good, God, who alone can give unending nourishment to the soul. “Whoever drinks the water I will give will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14). Our problem is that we try in vain to find all our happiness and identity in the truth and goodness of this world and we become addicted to these things, making them into idols. The goal of life is to be filled and transformed by God. In this process we need to pursue and possess what is true and good and beautiful. But allow God to strip and empty you, that He might fill you with himself – the ultimate Good. We are not talking about giving up things, because that does not strip the soul of the desires that remain set on them. We are talking about stripping away the craving for gratification in those things.
