“In the nun's case, her behaviour was striking not for the virtues it expressed, or even for the good it achieved, but for its power to reveal the full humanity of those whose affliction had made their humanity invisible. Love is the name we give to such behaviour.
...
For us in the West, the claim that all human beings are sacred is the one that bears most directly on the question of how to characterize the nun's behaviour. ... If we are not religious, we will often search for one of the inadequate expressions which are available to us to say what we hope will be a secular equivalent of it. ... Not one of them has the simple power of the religious ways of speaking.
Where does that power come from? ... It derives from the claim ... that we are sacred because God loves us, his children. ... Children come to love their brothers and sisters because they see them in the light of their parents' love. Often, we learn that something is precious only when we see it in the light of someone's love.”