I gladly accepted the commission but was uncertain about what the end result would be. On the one hand, Cuban music was conquering the world; being heard everywhere, and our small island was already producing one of the popular musical genres of the 20th century.

Those who have always had faith in its final success can do no less than rejoice as if it was our own triumph after five years of daily struggle to impose Cuban music on the European continent.

Even the pallid daughters of Albion forget for a moment their Pre-Raphaelite poses by burying themselves in the sonorous sortilege of the Antilles.

I had breathed in the atmosphere created by Henri Christophe, the monarch of incredible aims, much more surprising than all the kings invented by the surrealists.

The true Resurrection is based not on the mythical lie of the guilty victim who deserves to die, but on the rectification of that lie, which comes from the true God and which reopens channels of communication mankind itself had closed through self-imprisonment in its own violent cultures.

God's interventions are miracles: events that cannot happen by merely natural agents but only by a supernatural agent. They no more interfere with our free will than natural events like earthquakes. We choose how to respond to them.

Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives.

Patients describing the benefits of prayer often talk about how it provides a sense of well being.