The Genesis Of a Soul

Your Soul had a beginning; an Author.

It was conceived of by God and it is purposeful. It is totally unique to you…never having been made before nor will it ever be made again.

It’s no small deal.

There’s been a lot of talk in recent decades about the Soul. We are to connect to our Soul to find our ‘real self.’

In a certain light, this is true. But it is only a partial truth.

The Soul is not the endgame. It is the starting point to a doorway back to God.

If the Soul has an author, a purpose, a blueprint, than we ought to go to its Architect for its plans.

Last weekend, I was baptized into the Catholic Church. In Catholicism in adult baptism, we are baptized, confirmed and partake of the Eucharist (the body and blood of Christ) all in one evening, at The Easter Vigil. It was an otherworldly experience.

If you’ve ever attended a Catholic Easter Vigil, you’ll know that the church is completely dark, with each parishioner holding a candle. It’s beautiful, with shades of a more ancient time that seeps through the cracks of modernity.

During Confirmation, the Priest anoints the newly baptized with Sacred Chrism Oil on the forehead and hands. This is when receive the fullness of The Holy Spirit. It is a Seal upon your Soul. The Seal is a spiritual imprint upon your Soul that cannot be erased - signifying that you’ve been chosen, called, and sent.

You could think of this as a Divine igniting of the Soul’s purpose or mission.

What I find so fascinating is that for years and decades, I felt like I knew precisely what my Soul’s Purpose was. I even taught this many times as a course called Mapping The Blueprint of the Soul.

But here is the crucial ingredient that was missing: The Soul cannot be truly found or activated until we find it in God.

After all, it came from God. It was authored by God.

And herein lies one of the many paradoxes of a life that follows God…you must lose yourself (and your ideas of yourself) if you are to truly find yourself.

Thomas Merton, a Catholic Monk from the early 1900s wrote extensively about the Soul. He believed that your deepest identity - your Soul - is hidden in God. Merton described the Soul as hiding in a Sanctuary; a sacred space where God dwells, even when we are unaware of it.

He says, “At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness, a pure glory of God in us. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of Heaven. It is in everybody.”

At the very centre of your being, he said, is a point untouched by sin or illusion—a place where you are completely one with God. But here’s the kicker…no one can access this point but God Himself.

Okay then.

So how do we navigate this?

We don’t.

God does.

This, of course, makes no sense to our over-achieving, over-active brains. But, how, how, how?!?!

Well, it begins with prayer. And not just any prayer.

Contemplative prayer.

The earliest desert monks practiced and taught a kind of Christian contemplative prayer in which a single word - a mantra - was repeated silently for about 20 minutes. This turns regular prayer inside out.

Most of us pray a kind of ‘petition prayer.’

“God, I pray to be healed of my anxiety…Please keep my job safe…Please elect such and such a person to office.”

There’s nothing wrong with petition prayer. But God knows what your concerns, yearnings, sufferings and longings are before you ever utter them.

He is closer than your breath.

Our linear minds demand a kind of linear Saviour; One who checks off the boxes as we present them to Him.

But that’s not at all how this works.

I know it’s a bummer, but if we actually got our way, the world would be thrown into intense chaos and confusion - and a wiser part of you knows this.

So, we let go and we let God.

Instead, in an act of complete Faith, we ask to be come closer to Him and for Him to come closer to us. And from this alone, our Soul’s purpose begins to take visible shape.

There is an ancient Aramaic word (the language that Jesus spoke) - “Maranatha” - which means “Come, Lord” or “Our Lord, come.”

It appears in the Bible at the end of 1 Corinthians (16:22) and was used by the earliest Christians as a prayer or an invocation, especially when they longed for Christ’s return. It's deeply prayerful and full of trust and anticipation.

It is meant to usher in Communion.

And that is why we pray.

That is how we come closer to the Genesis of our Souls.

We find ourselves through Him.