I do not understand, brother, how you can, it seems, doubt your immediate entry into heaven, should the unbelievers take your life. I know that one must be very pure to appear before the perfectly holy God. But I also know that the Lord is infinitely just, and this justice, which frightens so many souls, is the reason for my joy and my trust. To be just does not only mean to strictly punish the guilty. It is also the recognition of honest intentions and the rewarding of virtues. I hope in God's justice just as much as in God's mercy. It is precisely because God is just that "He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in goodness." After all, He knows our fragility; He remembers that we are just dust.
(Thérèse of Lisieux, letter 226, to Father Roulland, May 9, 1897)
