Among the lines in St. Paul’s letters that I love is one that comes from Galatians, where Paul says, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” It is a line I’ve written about before (for example, here).
The other day I read a beautiful passage from Max Lucado’s Next Door Savior that does a wonderfully elucidates those words of Paul’s. What would it be like, asks Lucado, to have Christ within? He writes
To have my voice, but Him speaking
My Steps, but Christ leading
My heart, but His love beating
in me, through me, with me
What’s it like to have Christ on the inside?To tap His strength when mine expires
or feel the force of heaven’s fires
raging, purging wrong desires
Could Christ become my entire self?So much Him, so little me
that in my eyes it’s Him they see
What’s it like to a Mary be?
No longer I, but Christ in me.
Although the entire passage is phrased only as a question, and not the answer to the question, I think prayerful reading of the passage does, in fact, give something of an answer. The words, and the feelings they evoke, give us an experience of what Paul was talking about.
It does a good job, I think, in expressing what it is that we seek – to allow it to be Christ and not me animating my being, more and more each day.
Creo en Dios! 