death a symbol of birth

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I was amazed at how even infants weep as they leave the womb weeping because they come out from darkness into light and from suffocation they issue forth into this world! Likewise, death, too, is for the world a symbol of birth, and yet people weep because they are born out of this world, the mother of suffering, into the Garden of splendors. Blessed is He Who through His Cross has flung open Paradise!

 

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- from St Ephrem, On Paradise