The Holy Spirit brings
the living, transfigured Christ into humanity.
Thus does Christian interiority arise.
This does not mean that one becomes profound in a mental sense: it means the opposite of squandering oneself
in what is exterior. It implies that
there is a depth in man in which Christ lives.
It is possible to live with this Christ.
He can become the very content of life.
Then the New Man comes into being.
The old man is the one he was before, but now the New Man is sown in
him. How this happens cannot be
described. It can be that certain
persons experience this reality so powerfully that they can no longer feel at
home in the world. This is how
monasticism arose.
We seek the Lord in ordinariness, this is where Christ lives with us. If we are renewed at all, it is due to our availability, our attention to Christ's Spirit speaking to us in the depths of our hearts, calling us to ever deeper conversion. Our desire is total availability to his desire for us.
Andrea del Verrocchio, Christ and Saint Thomas, detail, bronze, 1483, Orsanmichele, Florence. Lines from Romano Guardini, Sermon on
Pentecost Monday, in: Predigten zum
Kirchenjahr, Mainz, 1998, p. 170.
