You ask me, my brother, when will man reach perfection. Hear my answer: Man approaches perfection when he feels that he is an infinite space and a sea without a shore, An everlasting fire, an unquenchable light, A calm wind or a raging tempest, a thundering sky or a rainy heaven, A singing brook or a wailing rivulet, a tree abloom in Spring, or a naked sapling in Autumn. A rising mountain or a descending valley, A fertile plain or a desert.
When man feels all these, he has already reached halfway to perfection. To attain his goal he must then perceive that he is a child dependent upon his mother, a father responsible for his family, A youth lost in love, An ancient wrestling against his past, A worshipper in his temple, a criminal in his prison, A scholar amidst his parchments, An ignorant soul stumbling between the darkness of his night and the obscurity of his day, A nun suffering between the flowers of her faith and the thistles of her loneliness, A prostitute caught between the fangs of her weakness and the claws of her needs, A poor man trapped between his bitterness and his submission, A rich man between his greed and his conscience, A poet between the mist of his twilight and the rays of his dawn.
Who can experience, see, and understand these things can reach perfection and become a shadow of God’s Shadow.