The Perfect Moment, Once Lost, Is Not

Because Of Course She Had Known She Must Go. She Always Did The Thing Because In Obedience Lay The Integrity That God Asked Of Her. If Anyone Had Asked Her What She Meant By Integrity She Would Not Have Been Able To Tell Them But She Had Seen It Once Like A Picture In Her Mind, A Root Going Down Into The Earth And Drinking Deeply There. No One Was Really Alive Without That Root.

For She Had Discovered That As Well As The Evil Web There Was Another. This Too Bound Spirits Together, But Not In A Tangle, It Was A Patterned Web And One Could See The Silver Pattern When The Sun Shone Upon It. It Seemed Much Frailer Than The Dark Tangle, That Had A Hideous Strength, But It Might Not Be So Always, Not In The Final Reckoning. (the Child From The Sea)

There Always Comes, I Think, A Sort Of Peak In Suffering At Which Either You Win Over Your Pain Or Your Pain Wins Over You, According As To Whether You Can, Or Cannot, Call Up That Extra Ounce Of Endurance That Helps You To Break Through The Circle Of Yourself And Do The Hitherto Impossible. That Extra Ounce Carries You Through 'le Dernier Quart D' Heure.' Psychologist Have A Name For It, I Believe. Christians Call It The Grace Of God.

[salvation] Is A Curious Process Of Divine Burglary. The First Thing To Be Wrested From One By A God Who Said 'thou Shalt Not Steal' Is One's Good Opinion Of One's Self.

I Doubt If We Nuns Are Really As Self-sacrificing As We Must Seem To Be To You Who Live In The World. We Don't Give Everything For Nothing, You Know. The Mystery Plays Fair.