We are body and soul – our beings cannot be defined by one without the other. The former is the familiar and tangible, and therefore, we are naturally more loyal and committed to it.  On the contrary, our souls are the essence which our senses cannot see, feel, hear, smell or touch. The soul is the mysterious innermost being, which can be all too easy to neglect.

Our bodies are the very address where we reside, and therefore we have a palpable, concrete realization of them. This means it only makes sense that we have a desire, or at the very least a duty and obligation, to care for them – providing them with proper nourishment through healthy eating and strengthening our muscles through consistent exercise. Our efforts to be healthy of course are focused on the body, and this is right and just. But unfortunately, it often ends there.

In so doing, we do not simply miss the other half of the equation. We do not have an equation at all because as Thomas Aquinas said man “is one substance body and soul”. Our souls do not die upon our final breath; rather, they are detached from our bodies until reunification with them in the final resurrection. And it is the state, or health so to speak, of our souls that determine our fate. Thus, while not forgetting to honor the Lord with our bodies by maintaining proper health, our efforts, energies and emphasis need to also focus on our innermost being.

So let us not forget our souls.

Like our bodies, we must feed and exercise them. Our souls need sustaining nourishment, which is offered from God. Grace is the spiritual food from God given through the Sacraments with which He and He alone feeds us. We cannot feed ourselves, but we must, however, open our mouths. It is like the Mother Robin feeding her newly hatched baby. She provides the worm on which the baby will survive. That small bird cannot feed itself, but still must open it’s mouth to receive the sustenance. So too, we cannot give ourselves the food on which we survive, but we do need to open our souls to it by receiving the Sacraments, which God so graciously provides.

While feeding our souls is a passive reception on our end, we also must exercise our souls through active means – prayer in all its forms (adoration, petition, contemplation) scripture reading and study, charity towards others  and the like. Otherwise, we will become stagnant, complacent, apathetic, which is essentially spiritual disease. As we challenge and push our bodies, so to we must do for our souls so that we don’t just simply know WHAT we believe, but also WHY we believe it, and then taking it one step further, being able to defend and share it so that our final resting place is with the Lord.

So let us not forget our souls.