Seek Ye First: The Importance of the Spiritual Life

Saturday, June 22 Readings Reflection: Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us to not worry about earthly things but to instead focus on attaining eternal salvation. He mentions our concern for food, drink, and clothing, concerns that belong to our self-preservation instinct. Such self-preservation is in itself good and noble; the fifth Commandment requires that we care for our basic physical needs. Our Lord is not telling us to abandon all care for our bodies. We need food, water, shelter, and clothing in order to survive on this earth; to deprive ourselves of such necessities would be gravely immoral and ultimately suicidal.

What Our Lord is telling us is that our physical wellbeing should not be our primary concern. As Christians, we know that this life is only a means to the end of eternal salvation; as Catholics, we know that suffering is spiritually meritorious on many different levels. The Church requires us to fast and abstain on certain days of the year to conquer our sense appetites and to remind us of our total dependence on God.

As human beings, we are comprised of both a body and a soul. Our bodies and souls are intrinsically connected; we are not a human being without one or the other. A corpse is a body without a soul; it is no longer a human being. Likewise, even the souls in Heaven are incomplete, as they lack their physical bodies. This is why we shall experience the General Resurrection at the end of the world, in which our bodies will be glorified and united with our souls for all eternity.

Food, water, and clothing are necessary for our physical wellbeing, but prayer, frequent reception of the sacraments, and acts of charity and penance are necessary for our spiritual wellbeing. Our spiritual lives are more important than our physical lives, for our souls shall live forever. If we prioritize our physical lives, it will inevitably be to the detriment of our spiritual lives. It does us no good if our bodies are healthy but our souls are spiritually dead in mortal sin. We must be willing to endure physical sufferings—be they deliberate acts of penance or the sufferings that God sends us in our daily lives—in order to grow in holiness, conquer our sinful passions, and ensure our spiritual wellbeing.

Today’s Gospel reminds us to prioritize our spiritual wellbeing over that of our bodies. The martyrs serve as witnesses to this, having given their lives for the Faith rather than denounce the truth. Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, two great English martyrs who died rather than support immorality. May they pray for us, that we receive the strength to always prioritize our spiritual wellbeing and to always remember that we shall live eternally and will receive the reward or punishment that we deserve based on the decisions we made in our earthly lives.

St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. Source