I'm reading The Tumbler of God: Chesterton as Mystic. I've barely begun, but even in the introduction there are gems to be mined. This caught my attention this morning:
One of the tests of sanctity is said to be a contagious happiness and inner peace. Chesterton had his share of sorrows and of illness and his darker moments; but more than most people he was imbued with a kind of unpretentious beatitude that tended to convey itself to those around him. The writer Franz Kafka said of Chesterton, "He is so happy one might almost think he had discovered God." Indeed he had, and he was doing his best to live in the light of that discovery. What was his "secret"? It was to love the splendor of the real, and to live in adulthood the innocence and wonder of the child who sees everything for the first time. The Gospel tells us we must become again like little children in order to enter the kingdom. Chesterton shows us how.
