Nov. 2, 2008: Feast of All Souls
Many of you have taken MRI or Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans. It's a powerful tool to look inside the body without invasive techniques. Unlike an X-Ray which penetrates the body, MRI utilizes powerful magnetic field to align Hydrogen atoms in water molecules in the body. Since protons in different parts of the body--such as fats and mucles--align at different frequency, you can reveal different structures. Even with such a powerful tool, you still cannot see one very important aspect about our body--the soul. The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle said soul as the essence of being which decides how we behave. For them, the soul is transcendent essence of being, thus eternal.
Where does the soul come from? The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following: "The spritual soul does not come from one's parents but is created immediately by God and is immortal. It does not perish at the moment when it is separated from the body in death and it will be once again reunited with the body at the moment of the final resurrection." (#70) So what does our parents provide us? From our parents we get 23 chromosomes that dictate how our body will look and function. According to the Human Genome Project, mom's or dad's haploid contribution amounts to 3 billion DNA base pairs which fill up 750 megabytes of data on a disk. It is miracle in itself that these 3 billion base pairs find right places to go. Since we know that soul is not bodily or material, the soul's formation is not dictated by the 23 chrmosomes from our parents. This means that the soul is created out of nothing by God--creatio ex nihilo. Let me put this in another way. Before our soul was created, nothing ever like it ever existed. The moment God creates our soul out of nothing, it is the most unique creation the universe has ever seen.
There are beautiful verses from scripture that talks about this. "You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me...Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be." (Psalm 139:13-16). Job says the following, "Your hands fashioned and made me...Remember that you have made me like clay...You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit." And in our Gospel today, Jesus says that it is the will of the Father that everyone that Father gives to Jesus will come to Jesus, and he will not reject them so to be lost.
In real life, we experience this as well. A case in point is Bernadette Kim. She was conceived around December 19, 2007, and she was carried in my sister's womb for nine weeks. Then somewhere around February 11th, something went wrong. And on 14th, my sister went in to have a check up, and there was no heart beat. The child was only 2-3mm or less than 1/8 of an inch, yet the loss for both the mother and the father was great as if they lost a fully grown child. I suggested to my sister to name the child and to have a burial service. She named her child Bernadette, after St. Bernadette of Lourdes. She did not realize at the time of naming the child that February 11th was the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, honoring Blessed Mother who appeared to St. Bernadette. It's a reminder that we are not clump of flesh in our mother's womb. We are unique God's creation who did not exist before.
Sometimes I meet people young and old who tell me that they feel like their life is worthless. They say that God doesn't care about them. At the time of our suffering, it is difficult to realize that God created this very soul out of nothing because He loved, and He sent His only Son to guide back this beautiful soul made in His image and likeness. I had to remind this to the group of men couple of nights ago at the prison chapel of Dixon Correctional Institute. I told the men the following words that Jesus gave to St. Faustina in 1930.
Jesus said, "Be not afraid of your Savior...I make the first move to come to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me. Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you. How dear your soul is to Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart."
Where does the soul come from? The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following: "The spritual soul does not come from one's parents but is created immediately by God and is immortal. It does not perish at the moment when it is separated from the body in death and it will be once again reunited with the body at the moment of the final resurrection." (#70) So what does our parents provide us? From our parents we get 23 chromosomes that dictate how our body will look and function. According to the Human Genome Project, mom's or dad's haploid contribution amounts to 3 billion DNA base pairs which fill up 750 megabytes of data on a disk. It is miracle in itself that these 3 billion base pairs find right places to go. Since we know that soul is not bodily or material, the soul's formation is not dictated by the 23 chrmosomes from our parents. This means that the soul is created out of nothing by God--creatio ex nihilo. Let me put this in another way. Before our soul was created, nothing ever like it ever existed. The moment God creates our soul out of nothing, it is the most unique creation the universe has ever seen.
There are beautiful verses from scripture that talks about this. "You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me...Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be." (Psalm 139:13-16). Job says the following, "Your hands fashioned and made me...Remember that you have made me like clay...You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit." And in our Gospel today, Jesus says that it is the will of the Father that everyone that Father gives to Jesus will come to Jesus, and he will not reject them so to be lost.
In real life, we experience this as well. A case in point is Bernadette Kim. She was conceived around December 19, 2007, and she was carried in my sister's womb for nine weeks. Then somewhere around February 11th, something went wrong. And on 14th, my sister went in to have a check up, and there was no heart beat. The child was only 2-3mm or less than 1/8 of an inch, yet the loss for both the mother and the father was great as if they lost a fully grown child. I suggested to my sister to name the child and to have a burial service. She named her child Bernadette, after St. Bernadette of Lourdes. She did not realize at the time of naming the child that February 11th was the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, honoring Blessed Mother who appeared to St. Bernadette. It's a reminder that we are not clump of flesh in our mother's womb. We are unique God's creation who did not exist before.
Sometimes I meet people young and old who tell me that they feel like their life is worthless. They say that God doesn't care about them. At the time of our suffering, it is difficult to realize that God created this very soul out of nothing because He loved, and He sent His only Son to guide back this beautiful soul made in His image and likeness. I had to remind this to the group of men couple of nights ago at the prison chapel of Dixon Correctional Institute. I told the men the following words that Jesus gave to St. Faustina in 1930.
Jesus said, "Be not afraid of your Savior...I make the first move to come to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me. Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you. How dear your soul is to Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart."
