“Love whom? Diego?”
“Why, yes, of course. We can’t help loving him. Oh, not the ‘him’ that the human mind looks at, but the real ‘him,’ you know––the ‘him’ that is God’s image. And you know there just isn’t any other ‘him,’ now is there?”
“God above!” murmured Josè, “if I could but keep my thought as straight as she does!”
“But, Padre dear, your thought is straight. You know, God’s thought is the only thought there really is. Any other thought has the minus sign, and so it is zero. If we will always think of the real Padre Diego, and love that, why, the unreal one will fade away from our thought.”
“Do you suppose, chiquita, that if we love him we will make him repent?”
The child pondered the question for a moment. Then:
“Padre, what did you tell me once about the word ‘repent’?”
“It comes from the Greek word ‘metanoia.’”
“Yes,” she reflected; “but what did you say that––”
“Oh, yes, I told you it meant a complete and radical change of thought.”