Mikael Rose

“But for man's primal sin and fall from the condition of grace there would have been no need for God's saving work. Both sacred history in particular and history itself as experienced by men arise from this primal tragedy. This is the source of the 'river of human history,' the series calamitatis, the res humana which flows like a river...History in the full sense, as the troubled past of the human race, is the consequence of a world plunged into the ambivalence of time; time as the vehicle of sin and tragedy as well as the medium of redemption. History in general, the troubled careers of men, societies and their institutions, as well as sacred history, the unfolding of God's plan for healing man's fallen condition, both arise from this primordial strain in the human situation. Temporality itself is involved in being created; but temporality falls short of historicity. Historicity is the mark of a world in which there is nihil solidum, nihil stabile. Man therefore creates a historical situation for himself in the very same act in which he provides God with an opportunity to exercise within human history his saving work.”
― R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine

“In Christ's Resurrection something began by which man's life ever since, and today and for all the future, received that incomprehensible exaltation that the language of theology calls Grace and New Life. And therefore in the Christian celebration of Easter quite particularly an affirmation of the whole of existence is experienced and celebrated. No more rightful, more comprehensive and fundamental affirmation can be conceived.
The gift of having been created, the promise of perfect bliss, the communication of divine vitality through Incarnation and Resurrection—all these are things, we might say, which determine human life every hour of every day, if the Christians are right.”
― Josef Pieper, In Tune With The World: A Theory of Festivity

“When the music was done, I shrieked at Julian Castle, who was transfixed, too, 'My God - life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?'
'Don't try,' he said. 'Just pretend you understand.'
'That's - that's very good advice,' I went limp.
Castle quoted another poem:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat’s Cradle

“When a culture is no longer centered in a living and continually renewed relational process, it freezes into the It-world which is broken only intermittently by the eruptive, glowing deeds of solitary spirits. From that point on, common causality, which hitherto was never able to disturb the spiritual conception of the cosmos, grows into an oppressive and crushing doom. Wise, masterful fate which, as long as it was attuned to the abundance of meaning in the cosmos, held sway over all causality, has become transformed into demonic absurdity and has collapsed into causality.”
― Martin Buber, I and Thou