Inhabit Soma
Thomas C. Maples
Sanctifies the Path to Soul
Spring Calling Awaits
The Theology of the Sancta Soma
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
In modern pop-psychology, we often hear a sentiment popularly attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” While poetic, this phrase risks a subtle, modern Gnosticism. When we examine the mystery of the Incarnate God—who entered time and space as flesh—we must ask: How can we truly see the body as separate from the spirit, the soma sancta, that guides it?
We are not just spiritual beings having a human experience. Instead, being formed in the Imago Dei, we are uniquely integrated into the “Vine” of Christ. As a result, we bear fruit that is both biological and spiritual. We are as much a body that encapsulates the Sanctum Sanctorum as we are a soul that animates the flesh. This is the Soma Sancta: the holy vessel where our psychological and physical history meets our divine destiny.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does bear fruit he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.“
Hylomorphism and the Reality of “How”
The pivotal rock group Pink Floyd, in their exploration of consciousness, once called us to stand up to the notion that we are “just another brick in the wall.” In a secular, materialist world, this makes sense; we are viewed as interchangeable units within a larger, collective yet soulless structure. I cannot help but scoff at this idea. Are we not created in God’s likeness, possessed of a soul that naturally gravitates toward His nurturing light?
Yet, there is an opposite error—one just as dangerous. It is the idea that we are merely a “Ghost in the Machine,” a spirit trapped in a biological cage, waiting to be released by death. I cannot accept that my body is a mere vessel for a separate passenger waiting for my eventual demise. I know that the “Ghost” does more than inhabit me; it forms me. It forms who I was, am, and will eventually become. How does this mystery work in our modern, clinical times?
Beyond the Ghosts of a Wall’s Past
In a modern era where God was killed under the scalpel of medicine’s intent, we treat the “bricks” with medication and the “ghosts” with talk therapy. But have we evolved? Since Nietzsche’s claim to God’s death, our symptoms have simply become more manifest in the body; the ailments of a soul without aim seeking its way through an impenetrable wall. Are we merely thinking beings, or beings that think—trapped in a Cartesian hell meant to divide matter from thought?
St. Thomas Aquinas stated:
“The soul is not a sailor in a ship, but the substantial form of the body”
(Aquinas 1951, II.1.242).
Where does that ship yearn to take us? If we avoid dualism and see the unified whole of the soul, we understand that while the psyche may create the possibility, the body is what manifests it. This represents a hylomorphic state of being where the two are one—just as the Triune God is one—meant to create an inroad toward salvation.
The Vine and the Branch of Salvation
As Jesus reminds us, we are integral branches of His vine. Yet, a cell divided upon itself becomes weak. Cancer can set in. Conversely, cell division is the very construct of growth. The process is symbiotic, yet the outcome depends upon the direction of the life-force.
In this hylomorphic reality, intent creates purpose in its manifestation. We have consciousness, but what direction do we choose? Where the “two are one” and allowed connection to the greater body of the salvatory Triune, who I was, am, and will become is written into the very fabric of my flesh and the greater flesh of God’s plan itself. This is the Soma Sancta.
A Spring Calling Awaits
He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines; Within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he waited for the crop of grapes, but it yielded rotten grapes.
I have often said we spend about twenty years growing up and about seventy years “growing down.” We build those bricks in the wall for a reason: they protect the heart of the psyche—that soul that is porous to ill-will, both physical and emotional. This is the nature of the spirit. However, we cannot create welcoming doors without walls to hold their presence. It is there that we actively choose to allow the Imago Dei to enter and walk with us on the journey of our life stories.
The stones, bricks, and symptoms of the soul are present. They call upon us as manifestations of traumas past. They are present, but they do not need to rot the soil of your realized path. Thomas Moore stated:
The soul manifests its trouble in the symptoms of the body. If we don’t listen to the body’s complaints, we never hear the soul’s deeper needs.
~ (Moore 1992, 162)
It takes stillness to hear the soft and soothing invitation to bathe in nature’s spring. What needs call upon you? Can you hear that yearning from within as you find the truth of that calling? With love and kindness, my friends, may God bless you on your journey of arriving.
Bibliography
- Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. Translated by Kenelm Foster and Silvester Humphries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951.
- Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947.
- New American Bible, Revised Edition. Authorized by the Board of Trustees of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and Approved by the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2010.
- Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
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