Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Passage from Willa Cather

This is from Death Comes For The Archbishop (c. 1927, Willa Cather; c.1955, The Executors of the Estate of Willa Cather)Vintage Books, New York, p. 50.

Father Vaillant began pacing restlessly up and down as he spoke, and the Bishop watched him, musing. It was just this in his friend that was dear to him. "Where there is great love there are always miracles." he said at length. "One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always."