Letter 101

101. A Letter of Consolation

It would have been a thing to pray for, that the first letter I sent you should have a more cheerful occasion for its writing. For then everything would have stood as I would wish, since it is my desire that the whole life of all who have chosen to live in godliness should go forward toward good. But since the Lord who governs our life has, in his unutterable wisdom, ordained that these things should come to pass entirely for the benefit of our souls — by which he has made life painful for you, while leading us, who are bound to you in the love that is according to God, into fellow-feeling — and since we have learned from our brothers the state into which you have come, it seemed necessary to bring you what consolation we can. If indeed it had been possible for me even to travel as far as the place where your nobility happens to be living, I would have valued doing so above all else. But since both the weakness of my body and the multitude of affairs that beset me, and this very journey that I have undertaken at great cost to the churches in my charge, have made that impossible, I was eager to visit your honour by letter, reminding you that these afflictions do not come to the servants of God idly from the Lord who watches over us, but as a testing of our true love toward God who created us. For just as the labours of the contests bring athletes to their crowns, so too the testing that comes in trials leads Christians toward perfection, provided that with the patience that befits us we accept with all thanksgiving what is dispensed to us by the Lord.

All things are governed by the goodness of the Master. We must receive none of the things that befall us as cause for grief, even if for the present it touches our weakness. For though we are ignorant of the reasons by which each of the things that happen is brought upon us by the Master as something good, still we ought to be persuaded of this: that what happens is surely to our advantage, whether for our sake through the reward of patience, or for the sake of the soul that has been taken — that it may not, by lingering longer in this life, be filled with the wickedness that holds sway over this world. For if the hope of Christians were bounded by this life, it would reasonably be thought a grievous thing to be parted from the body too soon. But if the loosing of the soul from these bodily bonds is the beginning of the true life for those who live according to God, why do we grieve, like those who have no hope? Be consoled, then, not to fall beneath your passions, but to show that you stand above them and have risen higher.