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" Then he came to a work by an anonymous artist of the late nineteenth century—it was a Last Judgment. He could not understand why he had not heard of the painting before, for it was clearly a masterpiece. The image was not so complex or populated with grotesque characters as Bosch’s famous painting of the same title. No, its power was magnified through simplicity. The artist had portrayed the second coming of Christ as the return of the Lord to a world devoured by evil. In the upper half a luminous divine order descended into a field of demonic energy and universal abomination. People staggered about the desolate landscape, unable to look up to the light. They could no longer see; they could no longer believe. They thought that ruin was the sum total of reality. He could see it in their faces, their despair, their fear, their terrible loneliness. The loneliness of the apocalypse. And in those faces he saw his own face. Pawel burst into tears and wept openly in front of the painting. It seemed to him that the artist had captured his experience perfectly. How had he done that? Had he, too, felt what Pawel had felt, had he once been where Pawel now was? "
― Michael D. O'Brien , Sophia House (Children of the Last Days #5)
