St Francis de Sales said: ‘Watch a bee hovering over the mountain thyme; — the juices it gathers are bitter, but the bee turns them all to honey, — and so tells the worldling, that though the devout soul finds bitter herbs along its path of devotion, they are all turned to sweetness and pleasantness as it treads’.

St Thérèse of Lisieux said something similar, in one of her poems: ‘Love, I have experienced it, Knows how to use (what power!) The good and the bad it finds in me. It transforms my soul into itself’.

Although the image is not of mountain thyme, and the insect is not a bee, the point is the same. All can be turned by God into goodness and sweetness in the end, if we allow Him to work. May God bless you in your own spiritual life this day.