It was only recently that I realised I apparently get easier and richer insights while in the shower than when sitting at a desk or even praying. This ought not to be surprising. It makes perfect sense if one accepts that while there are different parts to the human person, they are all animated by one spiritual soul and are connected and pertain to it.
It is not Catholic to imagine that mind, body and spirit are three distinct parts of me which make up the person. This, I discovered from an old manual, is an error called trichotomism. I haven’t been able to check the etymology of the word, but I am guessing it derives from the onomatopoeic French verb trichoter, to knit. It certainly isn’t Thomism. The Angelic Doctor would insist that the human soul is the form of the body or substantially united to it; in other words, through itself it communicates being and forms one essential nature with the body, so that the soul not only elicits intellectual activities but also sensitive and vegetative ones.
