Religion isn’t something we tack on to life like a crumbling doily, in other words: religion suffuses life, drives life, sets life on fire. “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” said Christ (Lk. 12:49). “Religion consists of the belief that everything that happens to us is extraordinarily important. It can never disappear from the world for this reason,” noted the Italian poet (and suicide) Cesare Pavese.

~Heather King, Shirt of Flame: A Year with Saint Therese of Lisieux