On the Life of the Soul

The Holy Scripture tells us to "seek after God," and our "soul shall live" Here, in two words, is the principle of the whole duty of man and the source of his happiness. The life of the soul, its true and only life, consists in happiness; the soul would rather not exist at all than exist only to be miserable; and, as long as she does not enjoy, at least in hope, what she imagines to be happiness, she does not think she is living at all. But where is this happiness to be found, and what must we do to seek it? Holy Scripture teaches us that our happiness is to be found in God, and only in Him. Now, guided by this rule, which is infallible, let us judge of the so-called happiness of the greater part of mankind, and while we pity them sincerely, let us try to secure our own true happiness. But this is a matter which requires more explanation.

The body has its own life, and it derives that life from the soul. If the body were only formed, without being animated, it would be only a machine, which could not preserve itself, and which would soon fall into corruption and decay. It is therefore on account of its union with the soul that the body is living; and as long as this union lasts, its life lasts. It is also the soul which preserves the life of the body, by giving it food and sleep as it needs them, and by curing it of the illnesses to which it is subject. And if the body had not in itself a principle of corruption, from which all the efforts of the soul cannot deliver it, the soul would obtain immortality for it by remaining always united with it.

That which the soul is to the body, God is to the soul, but with a very remarkable difference. The soul has in herself a principle of natural life, which consists in her power of knowing and loving, and in the exercise of this power. But the soul is not sufficient for herself, and if she were reduced to only knowing and loving herself, she could not attain to her end, therefore, all the curiosity of her understanding and all the desires of her will carry her out of herself, towards other objects which she believes to be worthy of her knowledge and her love, and able to satisfy her eagerness to know and to love. The soul then is only happy when she is fully satisfied on these two points of knowing and loving that is to say, when, by means of her understanding and her will, she is in possession of an object which leaves her nothing more to desire on the score of knowledge and of love. She rests in this object, and if the possession of it is assured to her for ever, she is also for ever assured of perfect felicity. All this is quite evident, and it only needs a little reflection on our parts to be entirely convinced of it.

But what is this object, to which the soul must be united by knowledge and love, if she would be truly happy?

It is not any sensible object. These objects have no relationship with the soul, except on account of the body which she animates, and they can only obtain for her a knowledge and love dependent on the body. But the power which the soul has of knowing and loving belongs to her as a spiritual substance, and quite independently of her union with the body; therefore this power must have its own proper object, upon which it can act immediately and without any dependence on the body. Besides, sensible things are evidently beneath me, and less than me; they were made for me, and for my use, because I have a body. But the wants of my soul are something quite different to those of my body, and my soul can find nothing in these sensible objects which can possibly satisfy her knowledge or her love.

What then is the object to which my soul must attach herself, that she may live with a true life and enjoy rest and happiness. Is it my fellow-creatures? No: their souls are in the same state as mine; I cannot make their happiness, they cannot make mine. My relationship with them is only accidental, they were not created for me, I was not created for them; we both have the same common principle of existence, our souls have the same needs; they aspire to the same life; they must seek it and find it from the same source.

This source of the soul's true life is God, and it can be none other but Him.

To know God, and to love God, this is the fullness of life and happiness. But can I know Him, can I love Him as I ought, of myself? No. My reason is not sufficiently enlightened, my will is not sufficiently pure and upright. I must go to God Himself, and ask Him to teach me how to know and to love Him. And for that even I have need of a supernatural light to illumine my mind, and of a supernatural impulse of grace to excite my will. It is in this light and this impulse that Divine grace consists; and this grace is to my soul what nourishment is to my body. This desire, this necessity of knowing and loving God, is the hunger of the soul, and a hunger which God alone can satisfy. He offers His grace to all, to sustain their souls and to give them life; but before He gives it He requires that we should ask for it, and He will always give us the grace of prayer by which we can obtain all others.

The soul is therefore dead when she is separated from God, just as the body is when it is separated from the soul. The death of the soul does not consist in not existing, but in no longer knowing and loving God. It consists in the soul having neither peace nor happiness, in being in a constant state of agitation and uneasiness. It consists in her experiencing a continual hunger to know and to love her one sovereign Good, and in never being able to satisfy this hunger. It is to distract themselves, and to cheat this hunger, as it were, that men of the world give themselves up to their passions, and throw themselves with a sort of fury into every pleasure that presents itself; they let their minds wander from one thought to another, they fix their heart on one affection after another, and all the time their disgust, their weariness, their inconstancy, their continual change, prove that they can find nowhere, and in nothing except in God, what can satisfy or refresh them. Their souls are always wandering, always passing from one desire to another; always seeking; always flattering themselves that at last they have found what they want and can be at rest, only to be disappointed again and again in all their hopes and expectations. Thus life passes away, and death surprises the wretched soul and takes away from her for ever the objects of all her desires, and leaves her nothing else but Him Whom she has never wished to know and to love. Whom she never can love now, and Whom she will only know too late to her eternal misery. What a frightful void in that soul! What an inexpressible agony! What a devouring hunger! What remorse! What despair!

The soul, on the contrary, who faithfully seeks after God in this life, will find Him; she attaches herself to Him alone, she is inseparably united to Him. And in this union she finds her life not yet a life of perfect happiness, but of a happiness that is beginning; she finds a rest that remains in spite of all troubles, temptations, and sufferings; she finds a sweet and secret peace in the midst of the tumult and warfare of the passions, and which exists unchanged in all the events and changes of this mortal life. Such is the life which God promises her here below a life traversed by all sorts of crosses, which she looks upon as necessary trials of her love and fidelity. Far from fearing these crosses, she desires them, she embraces them, she carries them courageously, because they only serve to make her know and love God more. She would not think she was living if she had not always something to suffer, because without suffering she would think she knew and loved God no longer.

This disposition of spirit may seem incredible, but it is real. And it is quite certain that, the more we die to ourselves, by sufferings and humiliations, the more we live to God; the more we come out of ourselves, the more we are buried and lost in God.

But after this loss of self in God, which is only for this life, we shall find ourselves again, at last, in God for all eternity; and we shall find ourselves again the more there, in proportion as our loss of ourselves in Him has been deepest in this world. Then we shall acknowledge the truth of those words of Holy Scripture: "The Lord gives death, and restores to life again; He sends down to hell, and brings back again." He gives us death to ourselves, and restores to us life in Him. He makes us die to our senses, to our passions, to our own spirit, to our own will, that He may make us live to Him and in Him. Life of knowledge, life of love, life of glory and happiness! All this will be the inheritance of all the elect. But what an incomprehensible difference between the degrees of knowledge and love, and of glory and happiness! God can be infinitely known and infinitely loved; He can increase to infinity the power which His intelligent creatures have of knowing and loving Him, and He will increase this power to His elect in proportion as they have loved and known Him here by suffering and dying to themselves. The life of glory will correspond then to the life of grace.

O my God! O true Life of my soul! teach me to seek Thee. My choice is made; I have no wish to attach myself to anything but to Thee; I wish for nothing but to know Thee and to love Thee. But I do not know how to come to Thee; I have no strength of myself. I give myself entirely to Thee, that Thou mayest enlighten my mind and guide my will. To live to Thee, and in Thee, I must die to myself. I know this great truth, but Thou alone canst make me pass through that happy death which shall obtain for me the true life. Once more I give myself to Thee. Teach me to die, to renounce all, and to lose myself, to find myself for ever in Thee! Amen.

- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou