# "Interior Castle Handbook Appendix A. Session 9. Excerpt from Gaudium Et Spes Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World" Promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, December 7, 1965 (Courtesy: https://[www.vatican.va/archive)](http://www.vatican.va/archive\)) 22\. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come,(20) namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown. He Who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15),(21) is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled,(22) by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice(23) and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.(24) As an innocent lamb He merited for us life by the free shedding of His own blood. In Him God reconciled us(25) to Himself and among ourselves; from bondage to the devil and sin He delivered us, so that each one of us can say with the Apostle: The Son of God “loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). By suffering for us He not only provided us with an example for our imitation,(26) He blazed a trail, and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning. The Christian man, conformed to the likeness of that Son Who is the firstborn of many brothers,(27) received “the first-fruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23) by which he becomes capable of discharging the new law of love.(28) Through this Spirit, who is “the pledge of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:14), the whole man is renewed from within, even to the achievement of “the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:23): “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the death dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also bring to life your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).(29) Pressing upon the Christian to be sure, are the need and the duty to battle against evil through manifold tribulations and even to suffer death. But, linked with the paschal mystery and patterned on the dying Christ, he will hasten forward to resurrection in the strength which comes from hope.(30) All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. Such is the mystery of man, and it is a great one, as seen by believers in the light of Christian revelation. Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us(33) so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father (34) ## Footnotes 20. Cf. Rom. 5: 14. Cf. Tertullian, De carnis resurrectione 6: “The shape that the slime of the earth was given was intended with a view to Christ, the future man.”: P. 2, 282; CSEL 47, p. 33, 1. 1213. 21. Cf. 2 Cor. 4:4. 22. Cf. Second Council of Constantinople, canon 7: “The divine Word was not changed into a human nature, nor was a human nature absorbed by the Word.” Denzinger 219 (428); Cf. also Third Council of Constantinople: “For just as His most holy and immaculate human nature, though deified, was not destroyed (theotheisa ouk anerethe), but rather remained in its proper state and mode of being”: Denzinger 291 (556); Cf. Council of Chalcedon:” to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion change, division, or separation.” Denzinger 148 (302). 23. Cf. Third Council of Constantinople: “and so His human will, though deified, is not destroyed”: Denzinger 291 (556). 24. Cf. Heb. 4:15. 25. Cf. 2 Cor. 5:18-19; Col. 1:20-22. 26. Cf. 1 Pet. 2:21; Matt. 16:24; Luke 14:27. 27. Cf. Rom. 8:29; Col. 3:10-14. 28. Cf. Rom. 8:1-11. 29. Cf. 2 Cor. 4:14. 30. Cf. Phil. 3:19; Rom. 8:17. 31. Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 2, n. 16: AAS 57 (1965), p. 20. 32. Cf. Rom. 8:32. 33. Cf. The Byzantine Easter Liturgy. 34. Cf. Rom. 8:15 and Gal. 4:6; cf. also John 1:22 and John 3:1-2. [[pursuits-texts/04-formation-and-liturgy/handbooks/formation-II-b-handbook/tj-ic-guide-apx-b|Session 9, St. Teresa of Avila]] --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation II Year B: The Interior Castle (The Seven Dwelling Places)* (US National Formation Program, 2024).