Quote Of The Day: What Prayer Is Really Like

And to me he said: "You need not be cast down
by my vexation, for whatever plot
these fiends may lay against us, we will go on.

This insolence of theirs is nothing new:
they showed it once at a less secret gate
that still stands open for all that they could do--

the same gate where you read the dead inscription;
and through it at this moment a Great One comes.
Already he has passed it and moves down

ledge by dark ledge. He is one who needs no guide,
and at his touch all gates must spring aside.

--Dante, The Inferno, Canto VIII:118-128 [Ciardi translation]

I know this is old news. Really old news, in fact. So I'm a little late to the party. But, just in case you hadn't heard in the intervening 700 or so years since he wrote that little poem thing, I thought I should tell you that that Dante guy was really good.