Jewish thought was oriented towards the future. In the history of the past, it sought the image of what did not yet exist. - Jean Guitton

I have always made it a rule to speak in a timeless manner, true today, tomorrow and always.

Discovering herself as the end of history, the Madonna now had the light to interpret the time that had gone before.

In Giovanna, purity was more than a virtue. It was her mark, her reason for existing and her implicit glory, her resemblance to the mother of Christ. Being a country girl, accustomed to seeing life in all its gestures, she probably had very accurate knowledge of purity in the physical sense. In the countryside, ignorance is never what the 19th-century bourgeoisie falsely calls innocence. And when, at the age of thirteen, Joan gave her virginity to God during the angel's first visit, she knew clearly what it meant. (p. 30)