On the Theology of Sleep

I have sometimes jokingly told my friends in Opus Dei—the apostolate whose principal characteristic is the sanctification of work—that were I to found a religious movement, I would make its principal characteristic the sanctification of sleep. A poor joke, perhaps, but there is a serious element to it. Theology, being the highest form of knowledge, must surely have an answer to why humans spend on average twenty-five years of their lives sleeping.