How should we regard life as we go through it? We are immortal: independent of time and space. This life is but a sort of outward stage on which we act for a time. We should consider ourselves to be in this world as players are in a game; and this life is as different from our real existence as a dream differs from waking. And yet it is a serious dream as we are judged by our actions. And so the spiritual man goes through life doing his actions for God’s sake. It is this view of life that removes from us all surprise and disappointment that this life is so incomplete. . . The one desire which should move us all is the desire to see God face to face.

– St. John Henry Newman