While on vacation, on the morning of Wednesday, August 6, Pope Benedict XVI met with some 400 priests of the diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone in the local cathedral. He was welcomed by the local bishop, made some brief opening remarks, and then took six questions.

One of the questions dealt with World Youth Day. Here is the answer in part:

You rightly said that it was a strong moment, from which we’ve carried home a little flame. In daily life, however, it’s often very difficult to perceive correctly the action of the Holy Spirit, or to be a means personally by which the Spirit can be present – so that the breath which dispenses with prejudices can do its work, the breath which creates light in the dark and makes us see that the faith not only has a future, but that it is the future. How can that be done?

Certainly, by ourselves we can’t do it. In the end, it’s the Lord who helps us, but we have to be willing instruments. I would say it simply: No one can give that which he doesn’t personally possess, which means we cannot transmit the Holy Spirit in an effective way, render the Spirit perceptible, if we ourselves aren’t close to the Spirit. Therefore, I think the most important thing is that we ourselves remain, so to speak, in the rays of the breath of the Spirit, in contact with the Spirit. Only if we are continually touched interiorly by the Holy Spirit, if the Spirit is present in us, only then can be also transmit the Spirit to others. The Spirit will then give us the fantasies, the creative ideas of how to do it; ideas that can’t be programmed but that are born from the situation itself, because it’s there that the Holy Spirit is at work. Thus, the first point: we ourselves must remain in the rays of the breath of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel of John tells us how, after the Resurrection, the Lord went to his disciples, breathed upon them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ This is a parallel to Genesis, where God breathes upon a mixture of earth and it takes form and becomes a human being. Now the human person, who has been obscured interiorly and is half dead, receives anew the breath of Christ, and it is this breath of God which gives a new dimension of life, life with the Holy Spirit. We can therefore say: The Holy Spirit is the breath of Jesus Christ, and we, in a certain sense, must always ask Christ to breathe upon us, so that in us this breath becomes alive, and strong, and works in the world. This means, therefore, that we must hold ourselves close to Christ.

We can do this by meditating on his word. We know that the principal author of Sacred Scripture in the Holy Spirit. When we speak with God through Scripture, when we don’t seek in it simply the past but truly the present Lord who speaks in it, then it’s as if we find ourselves – as I said in Australia – walking through the garden of the Holy Spirit. We speak with the Spirit, and the Spirit speaks with us. Thus learning to be at home in this environment, in the environment of the Word of God, is very important. In a certain sense, it introduces us to the breath of God. Then, naturally, this listening, this walking in the environment of the Word, must transform itself into a response, a response in prayer, in contact with Christ, above all, naturally, in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which he comes to meet us and to enters into us, almost melting with us. Also the Sacrament of Penance is important, which always purifies us, washes us of the darkness that daily life places in us.

In brief, it’s a question of life with Christ in the Holy Spirit, in the Word of God and in the communion of the church, in its common life. St. Augustine said: ‘If you want the Spirit of God, you must be in the Body of Christ.’ One finds the ambit of his Spirit in Christ’s mystical body. All this has to determine the unfolding of our day, the way in which it becomes a structured day, a day in which God always has access to us, in which contact with Christ is continually there, and in which precisely for this reason we continually receive the breath of the Holy Spirit. If we do this, we won’t be too lazy, undisciplined or indolent. Something will happen, our day will take on a certain form, our life will take a certain form in it, and a light will radiate out from us without our having to think about it too much, without adopting a way of acting that’s – to put it this way – ‘propagandistic.’ It will happen on its own, because it reflects our soul.

Full text can be found here.