“But in God’s sight, where is the greatest beauty: in the child who looks at you with innocent little eyes, so like the clarity of nature and so lively; or in the young girl who glistens with the freshness of a newly-opened flower; or in the wizened and white-haired old man, bent double, almost unable to do anything, perhaps only waiting for death? The grain of wheat so promising when, slenderer than a wisp of grass, and bunched together with fellow grains that surround and form the ear, it awaits the time when it will ripen and be free, alone and independent, in the hand of the farmer or in the womb of the earth: it is beautiful and full of hope! It is, however, also beautiful when, ripe at last, it is chosen from among the others because it is better than they, and then, having been buried, it gives life to other ears of wheat – this grain that now contains life itself. It is beautiful; it is the one chosen for future generations of harvests. But when, shrivelling underground, it reduces its being almost to nothing, grows concentrated, and slowly dies, decaying, to give life to a tiny plant that is distinct from it and yet contains the life of the grain, then, perhaps, it is still more beautiful. All various beauties. Yet one more beautiful than the other. And the last is the most beautiful of all. Does God see things in this way? Those wrinkles that furrow the little old woman’s forehead, that stooped and shaky gait, those brief words full of experience and wisdom, that gentle look of a child and a woman together, but better than both, is a beauty we do not know. It is the grain of wheat which, being extinguished, is about to burst into a new life, different from before, in new heavens. I think God sees like this and that the approach to heaven is far more attractive than the various stages of the long journey of life, which basically serve only to open that door.”  Chiara Lubich, Still more beautiful, Meditations, New City London 1989, pp. 124-127.