A New Identity and a New Mode of Action
Christ living in me is at the same time himself and myself. From the moment that I am united to him "in one spirit" there is no longer any contradiction implied by the fact that we are different persons. He remains, naturally and physically, the Son of God who was born of the blessed Virgin in Nazareth, who went about doing good, and who died on the Cross, two thousand years ago. I remain the singular person that I am. But mystically and spiritually Christ lives in me from the moment that I am united to him in his death and resurrection...
This union is not merely a moral union, or an agreement of wills, nor merely a psychological union that flows from the fact that I keep him in my thoughts. Christ mystically identifies his members with himself by giving them his Holy Spirit...
"I came," said Jesus, "that they may have life" (John 10:10). The life he came to bring us is his own life as Son of God. And because of his resurrection he received the power to communicate to us all his Spirit as the principle of our own life and the life of our own spirit. The uncreated Image, buried and concealed by sin in the depths of our souls, rises from death when, sending forth his Spirit into our spirit, he manifests his presence within us and becomes for us the source of a new life, a new identity and a new mode of action.
~Thomas Merton
~fine art, W Hunt, "Light of the World"
