I knew, even as we touched that I had never wanted anything more in all my life. All my crabbed cravings were as a cupful of pond water beside the vast ocean of longing I felt surging through me. My head swam; my eyes blurred. I burned from the inside out as if my blood and bones were consumed with liquid fire.

To friends! Life belongs to those who love, and where love reigns is man truly king!

We are closest to Christ when sharing the world’s misery. Think you Jesus came to remove our pains? Wherever did you get that notion? The Lord came, not to remove our suffering, but to show us the way through it to the glory beyond. We can overcome our travails. That is the promise of the cross.

The path is revealed in the treading.

The air crackled with the presage of lightning, and a heavy mist descended around them.

Death wears many faces, but it’s stench is always the same.

How is a man fortunate to live in the darkness, brother?" "Why do you wonder?" asked Blaise. "For only he who has lived in darkness truly knows and values the light.