"Christian tradition sweeps away the notion of the useless person, of time without meaning, of the purely banal act. In the Christian perspective, each one of a person's actions is for the whole world. Each act assumes a cosmic dignity . . . from washing dishes to guiding the Church, from caring for a child to governing a country. In this perspective, the person is free from circumstance. Chance does not determine her value. She can be great, she can journey to perfection, even under the worst or the most humble of conditions." ~ Luigi Giussani, Why the Church? (p39). [The Kitchen, 1858 - James McNeill Whistler]
• Luigi Giovanni Giussani was an Italian Catholic priest, theologian, educator, public intellectual, Servant of God and founder of the international Catholic movement Communion and Liberation. For more: https://english.clonline.org/fr-giussani
• James McNeill Whistler participated in the artistic ferment of Paris and London in the late nineteenth century, crafted a distinctive style from diverse sources, and arrived at a version of Post-Impressionism in the mid-1860s, a time when most of his contemporaries in the avant-garde were still exploring Realism and Impressionism. More: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/whis/hd_whis.htm