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Written by Carlo Carretto (1910-1988), an Italian writer and priest. This is an excerpt from his work “Why, O Lord?”

No, we shall not enter the kingdom until we have accepted the demands of love to the hilt, until we have desired to die for love of all our [brothers and sisters], until we have mounted the cross and ideally shed our last drop of blood! And you want to enter the kingdom with your thoughts greedily revolving round the money left in your cashbox, on your checkbook still on the table, with your clothes still smelling of tobacco, with your envelope of cocaine in your pocket? Or, worse, with hatred for your landlord or dislike of your husband in your heart? Before long the kingdom would grow ugly and the eternal banquet repulsive. No, my sisters and brothers, believe me: the exodus begins when you receive baptism, normally baptism with water; and ends when you are baptized with your own blood—every last drop of it. As happened to Jesus.

His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as [we] are; and being as [we] are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross, [Philippians 2:6-8]