Spiritual Aspects of Your Life

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J.M.J.

worldinprayer.org

My previous post was about treating your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit that it is, taking care of your body, both the external and the internal. Now let's take a look at the spiritual workings of our bodies. The soul is the life of the body. We must take care of our souls to make our bodies a fitting dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. There are a myriad of ways to upkeep your soul health.

Confession. Your soul is sick if you have mortal sin on it. Even if you don't, those venial sins can pile up and create a foul spiritual odor that will weigh you down. Go to Confession and get those hindrances out of the way. Face-to-face Confession, while uncomfortable for a lot of people, is a very humbling experience and is actually my preferred way of confessing now.

Holy Eucharist. Christ can give you strength for the coming week (or day) if you go to Mass and receive Him worthily. Please don't receive Him into your body if you have serious (mortal) sin on your soul!

Prayer. There is a time and place for those memorized prayers that you can find in prayer books. However, those should not comprise the entire structure of your prayer practices. God wants to hear what you have to say from your heart. Sometimes the most heartfelt prayers we say are those uttered when any little joy, pain, or anything at all touches our souls.

Silence. Talk to God a lot, and He will want to talk to you too! He wants a relationship with you so badly you don't even know. This takes listening. Turn off the music. Turn off the television. Turn off everything! Listen to Him. Say, "Speak, Lord. Your servant listens." He will speak to you, I promise! You just have to practice listening to Him! If you're not used to this, it will be difficult at first. In time, you will grow used to His voice speaking to the innermost workings of your soul.

Read the Bible. The Bible is God's instructions for us. I'm the type of girl who likes to figure out things for herself, only consulting the instruction manual when I can't. Going to a weekly Bible Study is a great idea for staying committed to reading the Bible, but don't stop there! Read it on other days too. I'll work on this with you. We're on this journey together!

Combine all this with taking care of your body, and you will be set on the straight and narrow path to Heaven!

God bless you!
Stephanie

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