OPEN TO THE SPIRIT
They don’t talk much. They aren’t noticed. Their presence is modest and silent, but they are the «salt of the earth». As long as there are women and men in the world who are attentive to God’s Spirit, it will be possible to keep hoping. They are the best gift for a Church threatened by spiritual mediocrity.
Their influence doesn’t come from what they do or what they say or write, but from a deeper reality. They are found removed in monasteries or hidden in the midst of people. They don’t stand out for their activity, yet they radiate inner energy wherever they are.
They don’t live by appearances. Their life is born of what’s deepest in their being. They live in harmony with themselves, attentive to making their existence fit with the call of the Spirit that dwells in them. Without themselves knowing it, they are a reflection of God’s Mystery over the earth.
They have defects and limitations. They aren’t immune to sin. But they don’t let themselves be absorbed by the problems and conflicts of life. They come back over and over again to the depth of their being. They make the effort to live in God’s presence. God is the center and the source that unifies their desires, words and decisions.
It’s enough to get in touch with them to be conscious of the dissipation and agitation that’s within us. Near them it’s easy to perceive the lack of inner unity, the emptiness and the superficiality of our lives. They make us intuit dimensions that we’re unaware of.
These men and women open to the Spirit are a source of light and of life. Their influence is hidden and mysterious. They establish with others a relationship that is born of God. They live in communion with people they have never seen. They love tenderly and compassionately people they don’t know. God makes them live in profound union with the whole of creation.
In the midst of a materialistic and superficial society, that so disqualifies and abuses the values of the spirit, I want to remember these «spiritual» men and women. They remind us of the greatest yearning of the human heart and the ultimate Source that quenches all thirst.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
