For Meditation: "the utmost expression of human need."

"The rock of Acoma had never been taken by a foe but once--by Spaniards in armour.  It was very different from a mountain fastness; more lonely, more stark and grim, more appealing to the imagination.  The rock, when one came to think of it, was the utmost expression of human need; even more feeling yearned for it; it was the highest comparison of loyalty in love and friendship.  Christ Himself had used that comparison for the disciple to whom He gave the keys of His Church.  And the Hebrews of the Old Testament, always being carried captive into foreign lands--their rock was an idea of God, the only thing their conquerors could not take from them."

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop, 97.