“How much worth, how much grandeur, what a great destiny man has, who is the very breath of God! That is, he was not created to live the few days of his exile here, but to live eternally with his Creator, to see the heavenly angels, and to hear their inexpressible melody. What joy! What grandeur! As soon as this life of ours reaches its end and these eyes close, immediately the other ones open and the new life begins—the true joy that does not end.”

Monastic Wisdom: The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast