Gregory to Opportunus of Aprutium. It has come to me that, from the time when I saddened your Charity with harsh words on account of certain things that had rightly displeased me, a great sadness and a continual grief of soul has arisen in you. Wherefore, most beloved son, I want you to know that I spoke those words not from harshness of heart but from love of your soul. Do you, therefore, turn with your whole mind to Almighty God; consider how fleeting is this present life; make haste to gain the eternal rewards; in as far as your strength suffices, chastise the flesh, which, so long as it lived in pleasures, chastised the soul.
Show your kindness to your neighbours; spend the hours of your life more frequently in psalmody and tears; bear with equanimity the wrongs inflicted by your neighbours. If you suffer injury against the truth, count it gain, so that, acting thus, through the temporal things which you endure by despising them you may attain to the heavenly kingdoms. And may Almighty God flood your heart and body with the saving grace of heaven, so that from His Spirit you may be able both to feel rightly within and to act rightly without.