Excess of love, did ye say? There was no excess, there was defect. She loved her son too little, not too much. If she had loved him more there'd be no difficulty.

The best fruits are plucked for each by some hand that is not his own.

What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.

but who can feel ugly, when their heart feels joy

No man who says, 'I'm as good as you,' believes it. He would not say it if he did.

We long for more and God's promise is that there is more awaiting us. More to delight us than we will ever exhaust.

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.