Look, most charming son, the holy preacher [saint Paul] has claimed that his entrance would have been worthless, had he not endured insolent treatment. And your beloved wishes to say good things, but refuses to suffer evils.
So it is necessary that you gird yourself more tightly amid adversities, so that adversity itself may add more to your desire for the love of God and to your concern for good advice.
Even so, the seeds of harvest germinate with more fertility when covered with ice, and fire likewise is pressed down with a blast of air to make it flare up. Indeed, I know that from perverse comments by so many evil tongues you are suffering a violent storm, and bear in your mind floods of contradictions. But remember the Lord said through the psalmist: 'I answered you in the secret plave of the tempest, I tested you at the waters of contradiction'. For if, amid those contradicting you, you do what belongs to God, you are then proved to be a true worker.
Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), II, 481
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