“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

In an emergency ward, in another country, I lay on a table awaiting the physician. Lightning flashes of pain shot through my body, weak from days-long inability to take in water and food.

In a fantasy movie, two fallen angels are on a quest. As often happens with quests, violence ensues. They battle it out, angels and humans, blood and wing-feathers flying. Towards the end of the movie, when it’s too late, God wakes from a long nap and wanders in, yawning.

Brian and Adin married and lived in Canada. She was originally from the Middle East, he from the British Isles. Over the years, they had to sort out where their differences came from: from different family backgrounds, personal differences or the different nations they’d belonged to.

One day, my brother put a book in my hand. The book, a biography called Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy, appealed to me. I read it into the small hours of that same night.