Daily Bread - Day 45

There is a measure of religious experience, which may properly be termed the life of God in anyone who becoming conscious of his guilt and sinfulness, and seeking heartily and honestly to Christ as a Saviour, enters, however feebly, on a new life. This life, though different in its character from that of the world around, and such as in due time, if the means of grace are carefully used, will expand itself into heights and depths of spiritual existence, is still only incipient as the life of God. It is only as the early dawning of a brighter and fuller day. There is a higher, more advanced, and confirmed spiritual state of a Christian, a life in intimate union with God, which may be fitly called the interior life, and should be the aim and pursuit of every one. To this the Psalmist may refer, when he says: As the hart panteth after the fountains of waters, so my soul panteth after thee, O God. And Saint Paul: I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me. And when he writes to the Colossians: If you be risen with Christ seek the things that are above - for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. And the Saviour seems to refer to this interior and higher and true spiritual life in the Apocalypse: To him that overcomes will I give the hidden manna, and a white counter, and in the counter a new name written, which no man knows, but he that receives it. This interior life is peculiarly the life of those, who progressing beyond the first elements of Christianity, are seeking truly to be sanctified in Christ Jesus; and to go on to things more perfect. There is in them the living principle of eternal life, so fixed, and a renewing unto knowledge, according to the image of them that created them, such as no other form of Christian life can compare with it in the fruits and results. Indeed, let the world deride, and many called Christians despise and neglect it, yet this is that life of God, which will well repay (what is our proper Christian calling) its diligent, immediate pursuit, And this we pray for, your perfection.

- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp