We should envy them (Saint Basil the Great)

We should consider those people blessed, literally, who live in communion with God, even if they live in a furnace, as did the three holy children in Babylon, or if they’re locked in with lions, or even if they’re in the belly of a whale. We should envy them, in the good sense, and consider them truly happy and joyful. Because they don’t mourn over the present good things of this earth, but rejoice in the hope which is begotten from that which is to come and which is eternal.