“with all your soul”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that the greatest and first commandment is “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” These words: love, heart, soul and mind are all terms that are commonly used to signify many different meanings. Before we can live out this command of Our Lord we must first know what He means by these words.
What is love? As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI points out in his encyclical God is Love (Deus Caritas Est), there is a problem with our language when we look at the word love. “Today, the term “love” has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings.” [1] In the Greek language there are three separate words for love each expressing a distinct type of love. First, is the term eros that refers to the passionate love between a man and a woman neither planned nor willed. Second, is the idea of philia, which means the love of friendship. Lastly, is agape signifying a love of choice and self-giving.
This lesson is the second of three lessons on heart, soul and mind with a focus on the soul.
What is the soul? The soul is “the spiritual immortal part in human beings that animates their body.” [2] “The soul is a spiritual substance because, although it is real, it has no weight, shape or size and cannot, like a body, be divided into parts. Moreover, the soul can exist apart from the human body. The soul is said to be free because it is endowed with understanding and free will. Therefore it has the power of choosing to do good or evil. Finally, the soul is immortal because it will never die.” [3]
Our soul contains our ability to think and to choose. As Christians we are not robots, brainwashed or forced to do anything, we are free. God created each individual with a soul that is free to think and to choose. We must therefore think correctly, use reason and then act upon what we think is reasonable.
What does the soul have to do with loving God? One of the three types of love is agape; this is the greatest type of love. As Jesus said, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:11-12) Agape is sacrifice, to lay down one’s life. In order to be able to lay one’s life down in this way, we must think about the choice we are making and choose to do so freely. We use our intellect and will. Love is not love if it is not free. A husband can’t force his wife to love him as Christ cannot force His bride the Church to love Him and God cannot force His creation to love Him. Love must be free and there is no greater love than to give of self in both thoughts and actions.
How do our thoughts and actions (our intellect and will) go together? Saint Bernard says that thoughts lead to pleasure, pleasure to consent and consent to action. There are only two steps between what we think and what we do. A lover thinks of the one he loves and then wants to be with the one he loves. In a long distance relationship, two people might often think of each other and talk to each other and this leads to the anticipation of the next time the will be able to see each other physically. We can think of this is the context of Christ and His bride the Church. We can think and speak to Christ often throughout our day and this leads to the anticipation of the next time we will be able to see and receive Him physically in the Blessed Sacrament at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, where He shows great love, by laying down His life for us. We can pray the Act of Spiritual Communion daily, which helps us to think of our Lord and desire Him. This prayer helps us to long for the next time we can be physically with Him.
“My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.”
How do we receive Jesus into our soul? The soul is our ability to think and act, to receive Jesus into our soul we think about Him and we choose Him. Love is a gift freely given and it is something that never stands still, we are either growing in love or diminishing in it at every moment of our lives. We can choose to love God in every moment of life; we can make our lives an offering to Him out of love for Him. By seeking to do His Will in our lives, we freely choose to love God.
How can we live out such a great task as laying down our life for Christ and others? Jesus tells us, “you are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:13) This Gospel is about the commands that Jesus gives. The commands are twofold: love God, love neighbor. This sums up the Ten Commandments, the first three dealing with love of God and the last seven dealing with love of neighbor. We can only live out this command because of Christ. “He [Jesus] is the God whom the first commandment bids us love, and it is in Him also that the second has it truest application. For not only is He as truly Man as He is truly God, but He is the Man par excellence, the perfect Man, on whose type, and for whom, all other men were formed; He is the model and the brother of all of them; He is at the same time the leader who governs them as their King, and offers them to God as their High Priest; He is the Head who communicates to all the members of the human family beauty, and life, and movement, and light; He is the Redeemer of that human family since it has fallen, and on that account He is twice over the source of all right, and the ultimate and highest motive, even when not the direct object, of every love that deserves to be called love here below. Nothing counts with God, excepting so far as it has reference to Jesus. As St. Augustine says, ‘God loves men only inasmuch as they either are, or may one day become, members of His Son; it is His son that He loves in them; thus He loves, with one same love though not equally, His Word, and the Flesh of His Word, and the members of His Incarnate Word.” [4] In loving Jesus, we love God and only it is only in connection with Christ that we can truly love our neighbor. As prayed in the Mass, it is only, “Through him, and with him, and in him” that we can love others. It is also because of Him, that we love others. Just as God love, His Word, His Word made Flesh and the members of the Incarnate Word, so we love Jesus and also the Body of Christ, the Church. To love the Church means to love the members of the Church. “Who can love Christ, without loving, with Him, the Church, which is His body? Without loving all His members? What we do – be it to the least, or be it to the worthiest, be it of evil, or of good – it is to Him we do it, for He tells us so.” [5] The five little words of Jesus in Matthew 25, “you did it to Me” has changed the world and is not only a motive to love but the power to love. [6]
In the prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas we pray for the “wisdom to find you” and “conduct pleasing to you.” This is the soul loving God. The wisdom to find you is our intellect; the conduct pleasing to you is our free will to choose to live by what He commands.
[1] Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, God is Love (Deus Caritas Est), page 5
[2] Fr. John A Hardon, S.J.; Modern Catholic Dictionary; page 512
[3] Fr. John A Hardon, S.J.; Basic Catholic Catechism Course; page 15
[4] Abbot Gueranger, OSB; The Liturgical Year; Vol. 11; pages 382-383
[5] Abbot Gueranger, OSB; The Liturgical Year; Vol. 11; page 383
[6] See Lesson 2 of the Catholicism Series by Fr. Robert Barron