At lunch today

At lunch today, I sat with several students in my wife's Spiritual Directors group. The talk centered around Thomas Merton and other notables of the Christian Mystical ilk. The general consensus was that these were remarkable people, luminaries whom we could only hope to rub elbows with at some point or other.

What I wanted to ask, but didn't is what these people thought was the difference between them and those they were discussing. Were they of higher quality than those sitting around the table or where they somehow blessed by the One to bring light to the rest of us?

There is no difference if we consider that we come from the same Spirit, the same Essence as the so called greats. The difference might only be in the willingness or the ability to be more open, more obedient to the leading of the Spirit