XI
Personal Duties (Soul)
Duty, like “charity, begins at home.” “He is a wise man who is wise to his own soul,” and, “What will it profit us to gain the whole world if we lose our souls,” are words of deep meaning and true wisdom. Care of self, both soul and body, is not selfishness. On the contrary, when rationally carried out this care involves life-long self-sacrifice, the very opposite of selfishness. Our soul and body have personal rights, so to say, that impose duties on which I now propose to speak. My remarks to-day will be limited to what is due, on our part, to our souls. Though in some quarters a great deal is said and written about soul-culture, yet the most of us are so immersed in bodily and material cares as sometimes almost to forget we have a soul. And yet the soul is self. We are really our souls, not our bodies, even, when living exclusively for the body. Our eyes without the soul are blind; our ears without it are deaf; the most perfect bodily organs without a soul are but dead flesh. The whole body in all its beauty, strength and perfection of form and mechanism is but an agglomeration of a few chemical elements knit together and kept in movement by the soul. We get fresh bodies every few years. There isn’t a single material particle left in me of the helpless little babe that emerged into life in this planet on my first birthday. The very brain I now use as an organ of thought and affection I had not twelve months ago; but my soul, i. e., I myself, a thinking, living, responsible agent, is ever the same throughout those changes of my body and ever will be the same, even when my body lies “moldering in the grave.” My soul or spirit will still go “marching on” in life.
The better to discharge the duties we owe to the soul, it is advisable, by way of preliminary, to enter into our real selves, i. e., to study the nature of our own souls. To know oneself is to know one’s soul, a branch of knowledge, declared by the wisest of the Greeks, to be “the first duty of man.”
I. Now, this self-knowledge, long hidden from the wise, and now laid open to “babes and sucklings,” this lofty wisdom, is within the reach of the poorest and the most unlettered. We all learn, as children, that the soul is “a spirit, and immortal, made in the image and likeness of God.”
The soul is a spirit. It is neither matter, nor dependent on matter for action or existence. It is not light, heat, gas, or an electric current, which are all matter or material forces, divisible and perishable. However refined or subtle, all that falls under the impression of the senses is material, and subject to the laws of matter. Our soul is our life. We say, indeed, that the eye sees, and the ear hears; but it is the great force called soul, that sees and hears through them. The eye, without the soul, is as dead as an opera-glass or a trumpet. It is true, beasts also live, feel and know; but in a very different way. They are meant only for this world, living in, and wedded to, matter, depending on it; never transcending it. They have no thoughts or mind impressions—only sensations. They know and distinguish this man or that with eye, ear, or nose; but not man in the abstract. They cannot learn by ideas, or go to school; nor have they conscience or any perception whatsoever of moral right or wrong. They cannot pray, or know God, or themselves, or past, or future. They live only in the actual impression of the moment. Being made for matter, they perish with their bodily organs.
Our souls, on the contrary, know past, present and future. We remember and feel responsible for thoughts, words and actions done in childhood. We think, and pray, and love, and distinguish right from wrong. Our souls are restless centers of energy, ever scheming, planning and looking forward to ever receding ideals, good or bad. To be a spirit is to be ever advancing, ever progressing, never to be satisfied with what it has, though drawn to matter and chained to matter; yet, it ever transcends it and is never to be sated with what a mere material world can promise or give. Its faculties and desires are boundless to such an extent, indeed, that the Infinite Good, very God, can alone fill them, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts shall not rest till they rest in Thee.”
Besides being a spirit the soul is also immortal, i. e., it will never consciously perish. By nature, it is not subject to dissolution, because, unlike matter, it has not parts. It is one inseparable, indivisible unit of energy. Death is only a breaking up into the original elements of which a thing is composed. “Dust thou art, and into dust thou wilt return,” applies only to the body, not the soul. God destroys nothing, not even the elements of matter, “the primeval dust,” and much less the soul. For weal or wo, it lives and will live on forever. We instinctively crave for life, not death; at end of the longest and most strenuous life, we are only waking to the fact that we have not reached a tithe of our possibilities—that we are but just beginning to live. All ancient and existing beliefs, religions and languages, testify to the constancy of faith in a world beyond the grave. The grave itself, in the care taken of it, and pains bestowed in adorning it, is a silent witness to man’s belief in immortality. A future world, where justice will be dealt out impartially, has been ever deemed a necessary corrective for its absence in the present. Future rewards or punishments are the balance of life’s inequalities. This world is the foreground of the next, this life the prelude of another. In the world of matter, we see law and order throughout, all disposed in “number, weight and measure”; and we rightly feel that such must also be the case, eventually, in the world of spirits.
II. From these endowments, or rather essential qualities of the soul, spring the duties we owe to it. We are taught in the first page of our catechism that “we must take more care of our soul than of our body,” another way of saying that the duties we owe the soul are far more important than those due to the body. And yet, is not the reverse of this the rule of most lives? The spiritual and imperishable element gets overlooked, neglected, sacrificed, to the perishable and the temporal. The soul is life; but this life is double, or rather, has a double aspect for believers, the natural and the supernatural. By nature we are intelligent and free, and it is part of our duties to train these powers. The culture of the natural life of the soul is a personal obligation. All lofty minds have recognized the training of mind, will and affection to be a duty of the natural order. But we live also by the spirit. We live the supernatural life of grace. We are called to a higher life. Hence, there are two sets of duties corresponding to this double aspect of soul-life. The first set of duties we owe to the soul consists in cultivating the soul’s two great natural powers, the understanding and will. The power of conscience is only on application of mind to moral truth, and is included herein. Every being has to unfold and develop according to its nature and environment; and man, by nature, is an intelligent being—a soul, we may say. His mind and will, and by implication his heart and conscience, are part—in some cases the whole—of the talent entrusted to his keeping. Punishment swiftly follows; if buried out of sight, i. e., if left neglected or untrained. The duty of perfecting the powers of mind and will is called “education,” a duty deemed so important for our well-being, that in most countries it is now taken over, up to a certain point and age, by the State. Withal, it ever remains a personal duty, both at home and in school; and, in some measure, all through life. The mind is made strong and forceful by knowledge; the will by character and conduct, a double process that should never stop. Divine knowledge and goodness, an ideal impossible to reach, are yet put before us in order to keep us striving and progressing. We have to work “whilst we have the day,” “advance till the light of perfect day,” “be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect.” It is only by force of mind that man, physically so weak, holds an easy mastership over all other creatures of the earth. They cannot be trained or educated, except in a very limited degree. They lack mind, a power perfected and made available only by education, broadly speaking. There is a wide gulf between trained and untrained minds. A savage and a modern scholar seem to belong to different orders of being; and yet, it is only schooling that makes the difference.
Education, in the narrow sense of the term, is by no means a panacea for all evils; still, rightly applied, it goes a long way towards mitigating them. “The one thing great in man is mind.” Human life is mind-life; and yet, mind is useless without education. Mind and education are convertible terms. Life is a hundredfold wider, larger, more enjoyable and morally better in the case of the educated. Schools close prisons. Duty and good conduct are but the best phases of mental training. Even supernaturally, as we shall see, God acts upon the soul by grace, in and through mind, will and affection. Christ was a teacher, so is the Church. Progress and development, in any direction, are forms of education. The first duty, therefore, we owe to the soul from a natural standpoint, is to train the intelligence by such education as we need in life, by good use of the means within our reach. Young men who neglect their education, or idle away their time in school or other place of training, fail against this duty, and it may be, seriously. To say nothing of their sin of sloth and parental disobedience, they do themselves a grave personal wrong. Though not necessary to be a savant and take out a degree, unless part of one’s profession, still it is each one’s duty, in his own walk of life, to be well up to standard or pattern as is said. All should aim at winning a certificate of efficiency. Gold or silver may be genuine without a hall-mark; but to most of us this stamp is the only proof; so in education. Indeed, there are very few professions in which ignorance is not a sin. It injures not only one’s self, but may inflict untold wrong on others. The priest, the doctor, the lawyer, the teacher, may be guilty of grave sin through ignorance of their duties—in other words, through neglect of education.
It is the duty of all men to learn their duties well, howsoever humble those duties may be. What we are in duty bound to know, that we are in duty bound to learn. We are all called to be perfect, not only in conduct, but in work, or rather our work in life is part of our personal duty.
Moreover, education does not end with leaving school; we have all to keep going to school as long as we live. The best school is that of experience, which never closes its doors. We daily need fresh light, and this comes with experiences, aided by study. We are apt to forget what we have learned, to say nothing of what is being constantly added to old stores of knowledge. It is not enough to draw on what one has. If we don’t keep adding, putting fresh capital into the bank of the mind, we shall one day find ourselves intellectually bankrupt. Whether as citizens or Catholics, therefore, it is our duty not to let the mind rust. If not careful to keep abreast of the times in this respect, we fall behind in the race morally, socially, and financially.
Though truth is mainly the object of mind, as goodness or virtue is of the will, yet the mind, or intelligence, too, is the seat of certain virtues. Indeed, the very conscience itself is the mind, dealing with truths relating to conduct.
Now, two chief virtues have an important bearing on the matter in hand—prudence and veracity. Both are intellectual virtues. They have their seat in the mind, not in the will. In fact, no two more pressing duties bind us in the care of our souls than to be wise and truthful.
Prudence, or wisdom on its practical side, as we may describe it, means setting about things in the right way, working out desirable ends by the right use of the proper means. It is almost synonymous with common sense, the art of discerning practically, how best to promote our own interest or welfare and that of others. Prudence, being a cardinal virtue, must permeate and be the groundwork, as it were, of every other virtue. To be rightly virtuous at all is to be prudent. It comes into play in all departments of life, temporal and spiritual, worldly and unworldly. Our Lord tells us to be “wise (i. e., prudent) as serpents and simple as doves,” and that, too, throughout the whole range of our affairs. Good sense and practical wisdom must no more fail us in the management of our temporal business and work than in saving our souls. Both make up the stewardship of which we have to render a strict account. It is a great help in this rough working world of ours, both to oneself and others, to display good sense. Show oneself tactful, and even worldly wise, in dealing with men and things. In the practise of this duty and of the virtue of prudence, it is well to remember two texts of holy Scripture, “The prudence of the flesh is death” (Rom. xiii, 6), and “There is no prudence against the Lord” (Prov. xxi, 30).
Another no less important duty to the soul is the intellectual virtue of veracity or truthfulness. Truth is the object, the very food of the mind; and any tampering with it is sinful and irrational as well. Speech is the soul of intercourse. It was meant to express, not to conceal, thought. The liar is the pest and plague of a community, it is impossible to protect oneself against him.
This veracity must be both inward and outward. We often deceive ourselves. Through prejudice and wilfulness we judge not according to, but in direct opposition to, the light. We wish to believe. There is often as great a lack of candor with self, as with others. Nowhere is this seen more than in matters of conscience, wherein others see the baseness or imperfection of our motives better than ourselves. We are simply blind, or, rather, untruthful. Protests of honesty and straightforwardness often cover the most unwarrantable lying to self, as well as others. Inward candor is as binding a duty as outward, we should remember. Flattery is often the worst and basest form of outward lying. A real lie is never excusable; and yet it may be a duty of charity to dissemble, or at least keep silence, as to our real sentiments about others. Life would be intolerable if each thought fit to say out all he thinks rightly or wrongly about his neighbor.
So much for the duty we are under, of training the mind and passive powers of the soul; but a far more important duty weighs upon us of training the will, the heart, the active powers of the soul, as we may term them. They have to do mainly with action or conduct. What we do is more important than what we know. A man of good will is more to a community than one merely learned or clever. Learning is nothing, or, at most, veneering; character is everything. To do one’s duty to the soul in training the will, or heart, is building up one’s character. Conduct is a very complex thing, covering the whole field of action. Matthew Arnold has very truthfully said that conduct is nineteen-twentieths of life. It is by our conduct, i. e., the fruit of our will or active power of soul, that we are judged here and shall be judged hereafter. “Be ye, therefore, doers of the Word, and not hearers only,” is a good scriptural rule in this matter. “Qui proficit in litteris et deficit in moribus, plus deficit, quam proficit,” a saying akin to that of “the Imitation of Christ.” “It is better to feel compunction than know how to define it.”
Thus far we have spoken of the personal duties we owe to our own souls in the natural order. But “the soul is naturally Christian,” i. e., supernatural. Mind and will are capable of higher things—a higher life—than that possible within the realm of nature. “The carnal man,” i. e., the merely natural man, “understandeth not the things that are above.” As experience shows, he is little above, often far below, the beast. Reason and merely natural love of goodness are powerless against the animal nature within.
Hence, we reason that man was never intended for, and as a matter of fact, never was created in a purely natural state. To perfect and enable him to develop the powers of his soul, a marvelous endowment, called grace, was bestowed upon him, and is still within his reach, by which he becomes a “new creature in Christ.” The new birth, “the new man,” made in the model of the ideal man, Christ, are terms that give us an idea of the supernatural life of grace into which we are born, in Baptism, from which we lapse by grievous sin and which we may recover, in the Sacrament of Penance. A new ideal is therefore opened out to the Christian, which responds to the higher and nobler aspirations of his nature. Nothing else sates his cravings. The realm of nature, mere naturalism, as we may call it, never will and never can satisfy. Man tends to the Infinite, in other words, “the strong, living God,” to be reached only in and through grace.
What the nature of this gift is, is not our object to inquire. Enough for us Catholics to know that it is a doctrine of our faith, that we need this sublime gift to lead the “higher life,” to which we are called and in duty bound. God is author of both nature and grace. A merely rational life, if such were possible in our fallen state, is not enough. We are asked to mount higher. A gift, superadded to natural reason, will and affection, lifting up the soul to a higher level, enabling it to lead a life and elicit actions, that we call supernatural, is within our reach. This imposes on us a new set of duties, which we owe it to our soul to discharge. They form what we may call our religious duties, and they all concern the preservation or recovery of Divine grace. This is the one vital element of soul-life; in fact, it is life, the divine life, in man. We must hold to it as dear life. To cling to it if we have it, and regain it if lost, is saving our souls. “What will it profit us to gain the whole world if we lose them.” What will it benefit us to be invited to the King’s Supper, “the banquet of the Eucharist, in God’s house,” if at the end we are without the wedding robe of grace. The duties, bearing, therefore, on grace, are of incalculable importance.
Our first duty, as I said, is to win and guard what is known as habitual grace, i. e., to be ever in a state of favor, or friendship, with God. This is having God specially present in the soul—becoming its life. It is also called justification. To win and hold this treasure, we must pray and frequent the Sacraments, as they are the great channels or fountains of this divine life, this “pearl of great price,” to which all else in the world, if needful, must be sacrificed. Daily prayer, attendance at holy Mass, regular attendance at Confession and Communion, both insure and strengthen it within us and, therefore, sum up our duties to the soul in its supernatural aspect.
Should this state be lost by sin, grave sin, the death of the soul, as it is well called, our first and most pressing duty is its recovery by repentance, a repentance to be sealed and sanctified in the Sacrament of Penance. The first duty of a Christian, urgent beyond all others, even that of saving bodily life, is to make his peace with God, offended by sin; and this can be only effected by true, heartfelt repentance. So embedded in the minds of all is the duty of repentance for sin, present or past, joined to that of eating the Bread of life, in holy Communion, as a means both of regaining and keeping alive the life of grace in the soul, that on the lips of a Catholic going to Confession and Communion has come to mean, “Going to one’s duties.” They certainly yield to none in importance.
Life, in its highest aspect, should be our main concern. We live, it is true, but how? Are we carnal-minded or spiritual? There is no middle course. Though men may, and ought, to develop and cultivate their natural powers, and so live up to the standard of reason, yet they do not. We must raise, refine and perfect our nature by grace. We have two sets of duties to discharge, as we have seen, to be just to our own souls. In the natural order we must train mind, will, and affection; but this training or education serves only in a good Christian as a stepping-stone to a higher. We have, further, to guard the supernatural life of our souls, by a higher class of duty, those that are summed up in the phrase “living up to one’s religion.” “Do this, therefore, and thou shalt live” in the full and perfect sense of the word.
