“Our present groanings are creating within us a larger capacity for joy hereafter.  Our Blessed Lord in order to portray this changing of cross into glory, and suffering into joy, compares life to a mother bringing a child into the world.  The labor pangs of mortification are the precursors of resurrection and joy.  Notice how sorrow springs from the same root as gladness.  The two do not clash against each other, but they blend into one another.  Our purest and noblest joys are transformed sorrows.  The sorrow of a contrite heart becomes the gladness of pardoned children.  Every stroke of the ploughshare, and every dark winter’s day, are represented in the broad acres waving with golden wheat.  In suffering, Christ takes you into His Hands, as a poor, dull block of marble, but with His chisel He shapes His purpose in you.”  Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Lenten & Easter Inspirations)