My first remembered experience of the numinous occurred when I was barely three... The sun was shining, and as I walked along the dusty lane I became acutely aware of the things around me. I noticed a group of dandelions on my left at the base of a stone wall. Most of them were in full bloom, their golden heads irradiated by the sun, and suddenly I was overcome by an extraordinary feeling of wonder and joy. It was as if I was part of the flowers, and stones and dusty earth. I could feel the dandelions pulsating in the sunlight, and a timeless unity with all life.
For, the soul tastes the supreme joy of being, not only in the cave of the heart, but also in the endless multiplicity of her contacts with the world and nature of which she is part. Every moment is a sacrament of eternity; every event a sign and a sacrament of the perfect Bliss; for nothing in the universe can escape being transformed by Divine Love at every moment of time. In the crucible of faith and love, all our joys, the greatest as well as the least, and our sorrows, too, are taken up into the one eternal Joy in the heart of God and in the hearts of saints.