Being a Christian is more like having your soul possessed by a spirit than having your mind clothed with new beliefs... It is like being haunted by the Holy Ghost.
Interpretation
The essence of being a Christian is a deep spiritual experience rather than just adopting new beliefs.
Peter Kreeft's quote highlights the profound nature of Christian faith, suggesting that it is less about intellectual acceptance of doctrines and more about a transformative spiritual encounter with the divine. This 'haunting' by the Holy Ghost symbolizes a relentless and powerful presence in one's life that shapes one's actions, thoughts, and essence beyond mere belief systems.
In practice
In a sermon emphasizing spiritual growth, one might say this quote to illustrate the depth of faith.
Trusting God's grace means trusting God's love for us rather than our love for God. [...] Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God's love for us rather than trying to rouse God's awareness of our love for him, like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29).
Remembering the facts of death and Heaven gives us an even more pressing reason to learn to pray: We do not have an infinite amount of time. We are one day nearer Home today than we ever were before. I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying; I wish I had watched more TV instead.'
Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons.
The modern mind always tends to reduce the greater to the lesser rather than seeing the lesser as reflecting the greater.
Our soul, like Mary's body, is to receive God Himself if only we, like her, believe, consent and receive; if only we speak her truly magic word fiat, "let it be." It is the creative word, the word God used to create the universe.
Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch! Let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark.
I believe that a worthwhile life is defined by a kind of spiritual journey and a sense of obligation.
You exist without the feeling of existence.
We talk about heaven being so far away. It is within speaking distance to those who belong there. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
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