October 1, 2014

This happened in 1960, when I was sitting at the doorway of my desert cell, in Al-Bahr Al-Farigh. I saw an ant climbing a mound of sand, when suddenly the sand gave way beneath it and it fell... And as soon as it fell, it did not hesitate for a single moment before beginning to climb once again. And again the sand collapsed beneath it and it climbed up quickly without letting failure push it into despair. It repeated this in front of me a great many times until it finally climbed to the top. I was very astonished at this little ant, and learned a lesson from it. I said to myself, “ I haven’t yet reached the level of this persevering little ant, nor reached its determination which will not admit to any failure.”

H.H. Pope Shenouda