Those are very awful words to which I call your attention, and beg you to read at home, and think them over carefully: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto Him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The natural man, a man in his birth state, as a fallen creature, unenlightened as to his mind, and unrenewed as to his heart and will, not only does not, but cannot receive, understand, approve, and bring home to his own acceptance and pursuits, spiritual truths, nor those good things God has prepared even in this life for them that love Him. Dreadful condition of loss and ruin! God, His saving truth, His blessed gifts, Christ-made wisdom, and justice, sanctification, and redemption, are only to be spiritually discerned, by the teaching of God the Holy Ghost in the heart and mind of the regenerated man. As our Lord said to Nicodemus, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. There is an inner discernment of God and Christ, and Divine things, differing in kind very much from a verbal knowledge and profession of Catholic faith. How ought this to put every one into close examination as to his own possession of the Holy Spirit. They that are in the flesh, cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Observe that, if so be, and learn from it how much it should be your case, and your prayer, that you may have that spiritual discernment of divine things, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit's in-dwelling. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God. Think well on this, and rest not till you can in your experience understand that weighty, solemn declaration of Saint Paul: The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp