Following God's Will

Letter 1,26 - to Anastasius, archbishop op Corinth. February 591.

"The more inscrutable the judgements of God are, the more they should be feared by human minds. And so, because mortal reason cannot comprehend them, it must subjugate itself before them, by humbling the heart's neck, so that wherever the Lord's will leads the reason, there it follows with the obedient footsteps of the mind.
But considering that my infirmity could in no way attain to the pinnacle of the apostolic see, I preferred to decline this burden, to avoid succumbing to a charge of unjust administration in pastoral rule.
But because it is not possible to oppose the decision of the Lord who disposes, I have obediently followed what the merciful hand of the Lord wished to be done concerning me. For it was necessary for your Fraternity to be informed that, even if a occasion did not eventuate at the time, the Lord had deemed me worthy of presiding over the apostolic see, although unworthy of it."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 148.