Who Will Save Your Soul?
If you won't save your own
8-15-23
La dee-dee-da, dee-da, dee-da-da, da-la-da!
Good question Jewel. Who will save our souls if we don't save our own?
Today is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where Catholics believe Mary’s body AND soul were assumed into heaven after her death.
Body AND soul. There are two elements to human existence. Everybody knows about the mortal body, with our unending focus on staying young, feeding it, medicating it, and thinking about it every second of the day. Fewer people know or care about the immortal soul. Atheists and agnostics don't believe in a soul, and all thoughts, feelings, personality, intellect, will and consciousness simply come from the neuron firings in the brain. Once the body and brain die, so does consciousness - the "poof theory."
Spiritual people and non-Christians may believe in a "soul" but don't really know where the soul goes after the death of the body (Judaism, Spiritualism); or believe the soul continues after death and waits to be reunited with the body at the resurrection (Islam); or believe the soul/consciousness is reincarnated immediately into another body (Buddhism, Hinduism).
In contrast, Christians believe in the immortal soul as a separate entity from the mortal body, and at death of the body, the soul continues and is destined for Heaven or hell depending on one's beliefs and/or actions during life with the body. Specifically, within Christianity, Catholics believe God creates each unique soul with the human procreation of each new body. During our mortal lives here on Earth, the soul is present throughout the human body and coordinates its various physical, mental, and spiritual functions. At death of the mortal body, the immortal soul continues on and is judged immediately and the result is a dispatch to live eternally in Heaven or hell or reside temporarily in purgatory during purification for Heaven. Finally, unlike Jesus and Mary whose bodies and souls were assumed immediately into Heaven at their deaths, our bodies will not reunite with our souls until the Last Judgment when Christ returns.
So who cares about souls and what is the point of this post Napoleon?
The point is - who will save our souls if we won't save our own? We are so busy saving our bodies and ignoring our souls and then wondering why our lives and society are such a mess. We all sit around waiting for someone or something to save us. We hope that more elections, pills, vaccines, jobs, careers, education, money, possessions, bigger houses, cars, sex, children, likes, followers, plastic surgery, etc will finally do the trick and make our lives worth living. In the meantime we la dee-da about our souls and whistle past the graveyard.
La dee-dee-da, dee-da, dee-da-da, da-la-da!
Here's a newsflash that I finally got this year: THE WHOLE POINT OF OUR LIVES IN MORTAL BODIES ON EARTH IS FOR OUR IMMORTAL SOULS TO OBTAIN ETERNAL LIFE IN HEAVEN WITH GOD.
That's it. So simple, but yet so complicated when we realize only WE can save OUR own souls. Nobody is going to save our souls for us. Imagine that, the ultimate in free will and liberty has been granted to us by God. It is all up to each individual person to live a finite, mortal-bodied life here on Earth to obtain an eternal, immortal-souled paradise after death. And that's why people don't talk about the soul. The buck stops here for each of us, and humans don't like to take responsibility for our lives. We like to blame everything and everyone else for all our problems and our lives. It's so much easier that way.
"It's out of my hands God!" "I can't be a better person because I was born this way!" "We all just go poof anyways so who cares!" "Let somebody else do it!" "I have no control over any of this!" "I never asked to be born anyways!" (this was and still is at times my mantra of irresponsibility and blame).
God hears these excuses and is saddened for our ignorance and cowardice. We are all born with a body AND soul to get to Heaven and live with God forever. The soul animates the body and directs the whole person toward God, so when the time comes for the body to die, the soul can enter into life forever with God. We can get there, so simply, if we realize that. As Jesus said † “Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.” † (Matt. 11:29-30)
We don't have to do much, at all. Just believe in God and Jesus, and live our faith until our deaths. Everything else on this earth is just secondary and a distraction from satan and his demons. We need to keep our eyes on our souls and off our bodies. NOBODY will save his or her body from mortal death (I'm looking at you transhumanists). But EVERYBODY can save their souls from immortal death.
Let me repeat: EVERYBODY can save their souls from immortal death.
So, who will save your soul? Only you will. You have all the power. Remember that when this world gets you down and you feel powerless. The most powerful action in your life is to save your own soul for God, and nobody and nothing else can thwart that action when you take it.
"All-powerful and ever-living God: You raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory."
A couple of months ago I was blessed by a stroke. You may indeed be surprised to read such a statement. Due to atrial fibrillation, my left ventricle hurled a clot up into my brain. Emergency clot busters and clot retrieval surgery had me discharged from hospital in 4 days, and within those days my complete aphasia and alexia disappeared and within a few weeks I returned close to my usual degree of expressed debate and analysis. However, my most abiding insight was an awareness and extraordinary reinforcement from The Lord, that life was short and fragile, and that when one receives the wake-up call of Divine attention, it is compelling. His absolute comfort and assurance were always present, and while I know not the future time nor place, I absolutely know that I need to keep attending to the work He has asked of me with the trust and assurance of His will and guidance.
Thank you for all you do, for your prayers Napoleon. Your trust in Him is so well placed.
What is the chief purpose of Man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It's just that simple.