Our Union Of Love

Letter 2,40 - to Dominic, bishop of Carthage. 23 July 592

"Indeed it is necessary firstly for the bishop to live as an example for the rest, and secondly he must take care not to show pride through extensive examples. Let him always think about the ministry of preaching, considering with the most intense fear what the nobleman said when about to go away to receive a kingdom, as he gave talents to his servants, 'Invest this until I get back.' We certainly invest in this business then, if we profit the souls of our neighbors by the way we live and speak, if we give strength to the infirm with divine love, by preaching the joys of the heavenly kingdom, if we turn aside the impudent and pompous with the terrifying sound of hell's punishments, if we spare no one the truth, if given up to heavenly friendships we are not afraid of human enmities.
Of course it was in showing this that the psalmist knew that he had offered some sort of sacrifice to God, when he said: 'Do I not hate Lord, those who hate you? Those who rise against you, do I not loathe?/ With a deadly hatred I hate them, they are my enemies.'
But at this I am afraid of the weight of my own infirmity, and I see that the head of our family may return after accepting his kingdom, to settle his account with us. But with what thoughts do I endure him, when I bring back to him either no profit or almost none, from the trade of souls in which I was engaged?
So, dearest brother, help me with your prayers, and what you see me afraid of concerning myself, consider daily in yourself, with fear from provident concern. To be sure both what I say about myself is yours, and what I desire you to do is mine, through a union of love."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 219.