Sunday, September 6, 2009
The way to true personality does not lead through the formation of a technique of the will, a decomposition of life into a series of separate, cramped acts…It does not lead through a petty decomposition of God’s commandments into innumerable rules dominating every situation in life from the outside. The way to true personality leads rather through the opening of oneself in the depths, the exposing of oneself to the sun of God…It implies making room in oneself for the life implanted in us by baptism, giving God the opportunity to speak in us, ‘watching’ before the Lord. It means especially the clear understanding that we are impotent to form Christ in our soul by our own efforts, but that the Lord must transform us; that we cannot save our soul by our own power, but only by the power of Christ. It requires prayer for the right thoughts and decisions, prayer for love, grasping the fact that our task is only a free cooperation with grace, letting ourselves be transformed by God.
— Dietrich von Hildebrand, Liturgy and Personality #
