OPEN TO THE SPIRIT
They don’t talk much. They don’t stand out. Their presence is modest and quiet, but they are «salt of the earth». As long as there are men and women 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 arise from what they do or from what they say or write, but from a deeper reality. We find them retired in monasteries or hidden in the midst of people. They aren’t set apart by their activity and yet they radiate an inner energy wherever they are.
They don’t live for appearance. Their life is born of what’s deepest in their being. They live in harmony with their very selves, attentive to make their existence coincide with the call of the Spirit that dwells in them. Without being aware of it themselves, they are the reflection of God’s Mystery over the earth.
They have faults and limitations. They aren’t immune to sin. But they don’t let themselves get absorbed by the problems and conflicts of life. They return over and over again to the bottom of their being. They strive to live in God’s presence. God is the center and the source that unites their desires, words and decisions.
It’s enough to put oneself in contact with them to become conscious of the scattering and agitation that’s within us. Next to them it’s easy to perceive the lack of inner unity, the emptiness and superficiality of our lives. They make us intuit dimensions unknown to us.
These men and women who are open to the Spirit are a source of light and of life. Their influence is hidden and mysterious. They establish with those around them a relationship that is born of God. They live in communion with people they have never seen. They love tenderly and compassionately the people they don’t know. God makes them live in profound union with the whole of creation.
In the midst of a materialist and superficial society, that so easily disqualifies and abuses the values of the Spirit, I want to make memory of these «spiritual» men and women. They remind us of the greatest yearning of the human heart and the final Source where all thirst is quenched.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
