Spiritual Quote of the Day (Blaise Pascal, on Why Jesus Suffered and Died)

“Let us, then, consider death in Jesus Christ, and not without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is horrible, detestable, the horror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is altogether different; it is benignant, holy, the joy of the faithful. Everything is sweet in Jesus Christ, even to death: Jesus Christ suffered and died to sanctify death and suffering; he has been all that was great, and all that was abject, in order to sanctify in himself all things except sin, and to be the model of every condition.” —French philosopher and logician Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), letter of Oct. 17, 1651, to “Madame Perier and Her Husband, on the Death of M. Pascal, Pere,” in The Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal, translated by O.W. Wight (1869)

(The image accompanying this post is Crucifixion, by German 16th-century painter Peter Gertner.)