Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 470

Gregory to Gregoria, chamberlain of the Augusta. I have received the longed-for writings of your sweetness, in which you strove by all means to accuse yourself concerning the multitude of your sins; but I know that you fervently love the omnipotent Lord, and I trust in His mercy that that sentence proceeds concerning you from the mouth of Truth, which was spoken concerning a certain holy woman: 'Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much' (Luke 7:47). And in what manner they were forgiven has been shown also in this, which followed afterward, that she sat at the feet of the Lord and heard the word from His mouth (Luke 10:39). For, lifted up in the contemplative life, she had already transcended the active life, which her sister Martha still held (ibid. 40).

She also diligently sought the buried Lord, and, bending over the tomb, did not find His body. But even when the disciples had departed, she herself stood weeping before the door of the tomb, and Him whom she sought as dead she was found worthy to see living, and she announced to the disciples that He had risen (Matt. 28:1; Luke 24:1ff.). And this was by a wondrous dispensation of the mercy of God, that from the mouth of a woman life should be announced, because from the mouth of a woman death had been proffered in paradise. She too, at another time, when with the other Mary she saw the Lord after the resurrection, drawing near held His feet. Bring, I pray, before your eyes what hands, whose feet they held.

That woman who had been a sinner in the city, those hands which had been polluted by iniquity, touched the feet of Him who sits at the Father's right hand above the summit of the angels. Let us weigh, if we can, what are those bowels of supernal mercy, that a woman who had been plunged into the depth of the abyss through guilt should thus be lifted on high by grace, on the wing of love. It is fulfilled, sweet daughter, fulfilled — that which was promised to us by the prophetic voice concerning this time of the holy Church: 'And in that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David, for the washing of the sinner and of the unclean woman' (Zech. 13:1).

For the house of David is a fountain open to us sinners for washing, because we are now washed from the filth of our iniquities by mercy laid open through David's Son, our Saviour. But as to what your sweetness added in her letters — that she is importunate toward me, until I write that it has been revealed to me that your sins are forgiven — you have asked a thing both difficult and unprofitable: difficult indeed, because I am unworthy that a revelation should be made to me; unprofitable truly, because you ought not to be made secure concerning your sins until, on the last day of your life, you can no longer bewail those same sins. And until that day come, you ought ever, suspicious and ever anxious, to fear your faults, and to wash them away with daily tears.

Surely the apostle Paul had already ascended to the third heaven, had also been led into paradise, had heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak (2 Cor. 12:2, 3, 4), and yet, still trembling, he said: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, preaching to others, I myself should become a castaway' (1 Cor. 9:27). Does he still fear who is already being led to heaven, and does he who still dwells on earth already refuse to fear? Consider, sweetest daughter, that security is wont to be the mother of negligence. You ought not therefore in this life to have that security by which you may be rendered negligent. For it is written: 'Blessed is the man who is always fearful' (Prov. 28:14). And again it is written:

'Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling' (Ps. 2:11). In the short time, therefore, of this life, it is necessary that trembling should hold your mind, so that afterward, in the joy of security, it may rejoice without end. May the omnipotent God fill your mind with the grace of His Holy Spirit, and after the tears which you daily pour forth in prayer, may He lead you to eternal joys. (Cf. John the Deacon, book iv, no. 60.)