教牧守則·對話錄與書信 第 659 章

Gregory to Venantius, bishop of Luni. We write that your fraternity's solicitude has so pleased us, that it was of our zeal to fulfill in effect the things you wished. Since therefore you wrote that we should send a person who might in the monastery situated in your city be able to govern the office of abbess, we have foreseen to direct thither one whom, by the aid of divine mercy, we judge able to be vigorous in the governance of that same monastery, so that by you, with God protecting, she may be ordained abbess. For she came here to us only for the cause of prayer.

Since therefore we have sent the aforementioned handmaid of God to your good will, together with a letter, we exhort that your fraternity may exercise solicitude concerning her and her monastery, and may strengthen the congregation dwelling there in the service of Jesus Christ our God and Redeemer, by the voice of its exhortation and the exhibition of good works; and so may show itself toward her external interests and affairs, wherever it shall be necessary, that those living there may find great support in you, as is fitting, and that the necessity of no thing may press them down; so that, while by your provision every necessity shall have been removed from them, they may be able with untroubled mind to persist assiduously in the prayer and praises of God.

For so it will come to pass that both to them the chosen way of life may profit unto salvation, and to you unto reward. For grace altogether greater is acquired, if the shepherd's solicitude offers to the Lord gain from the sheep committed to it.