“DO you hope to escape what no mortal man has ever yet escaped? What saint in this world has been without his cross and without some trouble? Truly, our Lord Jesus was not one hour without some sorrow and pain as long as He lived here. It behoooved Him to suffer death and to rise again and so to enter into His glory. How is it, then, that you seek any other way to heaven than this plain, high way of the Cross. All the life of Christ was Cross and martyrdom; do you seek pleasure and joy? You err greatly if you seek any other thing than to suffer, for all this mortal life is full of misery and is all surrounded and marked with crosses. And the more highly a man profits in spirit, the more painful crosses will he find, for, by the firm certainty of Christ’s love, in which he daily increases, the pain of this exile daily appears to him more and more.”
—- Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book Two, Chapter 12
