If the Church has sometimes been against science, the cause lies in its misreading of the Bible. - Jean Guitton

L'ateismo non è soltanto macchinoso e raro, è anche un fenomeno recente, una bizzarria sostenuta da pochi e da poco tempo nel solo ambiente di certa intelligentia occidentale.

For Teresa, the way of Mary is a way of faith, without ecstasy, without miracles, even without words.

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)