“Powerful signs have been given to exiles in the past, fleeing their own land, going back into the country of their people’s bondage. Angels in dreams, surprise stars, wise men from the east—yet we cannot live on signs, for we would soon become dependent on them. We live by faith, and if from time to time the veil is parted briefly, it is to encourage us for a specific task or to sustain us through a period we couldn’t otherwise endure. But it is faith that we stand most in need of. . . . Faith is the great teacher and molder of hearts, the temperer of souls, as gold is tested in fire. . . . When our other strengths fail, there at the base of our empty souls is a mysterious silent wealth. There at the bottom of the barrel is the real strength, not power or resources, not worldly wisdom or a solid defense system, but rather the will to continue to love and to live by the truth. The human will! That curious faculty which can do so much good but which so often reaches instead for bombs and blunderbusses and even, at its worst, grasps for the ultimate illusion of being lord over all it surveys. Why do we grieve so when that grasping fails? Why is it that we resist the stripping down and flee from the knowledge of our fundamental human weakness? Is it really so bad when the true learning begins?”
~Michael O’Brien (from Plague Journal)
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