Paolo Prosperi

“Disdain for the form in the name of the Spirit’s freedom always leads, intentionally or not, to disdain for the flesh of Christ.”

“In love, the one who is not disposed to shed blood cannot drink the wine of true joy.”

“The creature does not need to deny his own creatureliness in order to satisfy his desire for divine glory.”

“[T]he horrendous experience through which the gods make the young Orestes pass contains in reality a paradoxical gift of grace .”

“Since the Virgin’s divine motherhood is literally the most beautiful , that is, most fitting (‘rightest’) and most proportionate, means for God to manifest the glory of his generosity, then Mary’s divine motherhood cannot but be, in a sense, the very final cause of creation itself.”

“Such an impossible unity of passion and freedom is really the beginning of heaven on earth.”

“How could one joyfully drink the wine of this union, without at the same time being pierced by the painful memory of the wound from which it flows?”

"The great gift that comes with hope . . . is the ability to accomplish deeds that reflect God's sovereign freedom, to mirror it with a fidelity otherwise unmatched in the finite realm."

“[T]he martyr becomes truly a living image of the trinitarian truth revealed in and through the love of the Cross.”

“[T]he central conviction of the circle of Fourvière was the attempt to find in the Fathers the key for a unified vision of the whole of reality entirely grounded in the mystery and person of Jesus Christ.”

“That which in the ‘figure’ is a sign of impotence, becomes an act of power: eros becomes agape. In this transformation, however, the figure is not lost. It becomes more resplendent . . . .”