‘Keep your mind in hell, and despair not’ is indeed a basic formula for the ideal truth inherent in Christlikeness.

 ‘Take up your cross’, says Jesus to his disciples, ‘and follow me’. For that is how God is revealed – first and foremost, on the cross. Properly interpreted, the symbol of the harrowing of hell captures the very essence of revelation.

 Above all, God’s love is just what shines through the mixture of profound respect and compassion evoked in those who witness that quality of resoluteness, in the afflicted, which Jesus on the cross represents, and who do not turn aside, but let themselves be truly confronted by it.