1. I particularly beg you, my friends, and beseech you for Jesus' sake, not to be grieved that I am absent from you in the body, for I believe you are confident that in no wise could I depart from you in spirit and heart-felt affection. Y"et I am more grieved than perhaps you are yourselves that in the weak state of my health I cannot adequately cope with all the attentions required from me by the members of Christ, whom love and fear of Him compel me to serve. For you are well aware, my dear friends, that I have never been absent because of any selfish desire for a free time, but because of the obligations imposed on me by my servitude, which has often compelled my holy brethren and colleagues to undertake tasks on the sea and over the sea, from which I have been excused not from want of conscientiousness, a but from imperfect bodily health. Accordingly, my brethren, let your behaviour be such that, as the Apostle says, “whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” b If you are harassed by some temporal vexation, it ought the more to remind you how you ought to think of that life which you are to live without any toil, escaping not the vexatious hardships of this fleeting age, but the terrible penalties of the everlasting fire. For if you now expend so much forethought,, so much effort, so much toil, in saving yourselves from falling into any transitory torments, how anxious you should be to escape from everlasting miseries! And if the death which ends the toil of this life inspires such fear, how greatly that death is to be feared which casts men into everlasting pain! And if the vile and short-lived charms of this world are so loved, how much more eagerly are the undefiled and unending joys of the world to come to be sought after! Meditate upon these things and be not slothful in good works, that in due season you may come to the harvest of your sowing.
1. In primis peto caritatem vestram et per Iesum obsecro, ne vos mea contristet absentia corporalis. Nam spiritu et cordis affectu puto vos non dubitare nullo modo me a vobis posse discedere, quamvis me amplius contristet quam forte vos ipsos, quod infirmitas mea sufficere non potest omnibus curis quas de me exigunt membra Christi, quibus me et timor eius et caritas servire compellit. Illud enim noverit vestra dilectio numquam me absentem fuisse licentiosa libertate sed necessaria servitute, quae saepe sanctos fratres et collegas meos etiam labores marinos et transmarinos compulit sustinere, a quibus me semper non indevotio mentis sed minus idonea valitudo corporis excusavit. Proinde, dilectissimi fratres, sic agite, ut, quod ait apostolus, sive adveniens et videns vos sive absens, audiam de vobis quia statis in imo spiritu, uno animo conlaborantes fidei evangelicae. Si vos aliqua molestia temporalis exagitat, ipsa vos magis admonere debet quem ad modum de illa vita cogitare debeatis, ubi sine aliquo labore vivatis, evadentes non molestas angustias temporis parvi sed horrendas poenas ignis aeterni. Nam si modo tanta cura, tanta intentione, tanto labore agitis ne in aliquos cruciatus transitorios incidatis, quantum vos oportet esse sollicitos, ut sempiternas miserias fugiatis! Et si mors sic timetur, quae finit temporalem laborem, quo modo timenda est, quae mittit in aeternum dolorem! Et si deliciae saeculi huius breves et sordida e sic amantur, quanto vehementius futuri saeculi gaudia pura et infinita quaerenda sunt! Ista cogitantes, nolite esse pigri in operibus bonis, ut ad vestri seminis messem suo tempore veniatis.
2. I have been informed that you have forgotten your habit of clothing the poor; to that work of mercy I exhorted you when I was with you, and I now exhort you not to be overcome and made slothful by the trials of this present world, which you now see visited by such calamities c as our Lord and Redeemer, who cannot lie, foretold would come to pass. So far then from having any right to curtail your works of mercy, you ought to increase them beyond your usual measure. For just as they who see in the crumbling of its walls the impending downfall of their home, hasten to remove themselves to places more secure, so ought Christian hearts, the more they feel by the increase of its trials the approaching downfall of this present world, to be the more prompt and active in transferring to the treasury of heaven those goods they were proposing to store up on earth; in this way, if any human misfortune occurs, he who has removed from the place of destruction may rejoice, but if no such misfortune follows, he may not grieve, since, destined some day to die, he has committed his own possessions to his everlasting Lord, to Whom he will one day depart. Therefore, my beloved brethren, from what he has let each one of you according to his ability—and of that each man is the best judge—give his accustomed share with more than his accustomed cheerfulness, and cherish in your hearts amid all the vexations of this present world that admonition of the Apostle, in which he says: “The Lord is at hand; be careful for nothing.”a Let me have such reports of you that I may know that it is not because of my presence but because of God's command, Who is never absent from you, that you follow the practice you have followed for many years while I was present with you, and sometimes even when I was absent. The Lord preserve you in peace, my beloved brethren. Pray for us.
2. Nuntiatum est enim mihi, quod morem vestrum de vestiendis pauperibus fueritis obliti, ad quam misericordiam, cum praesens essem, vos exhortatus sum et nunc exhortor, ne vos vincat et pigros faciat contritio mundi huius, cui talia videtis accidere qualia dominus et redemptor noster, qui mentiri non potest, ventura praedixit. Non solum ergo non debetis minus facere opera misericordiae, sed etiam debetis amplius quam soletis. Sicut enim ad loca munitiora festinatius migrant, qui ruinam domus vident contritis parietibus imminere, sic corda Christiana quanto magis sentiunt mundi huius ruinam crebrescentibus tribulationibus propinquare, tanto magis debent bona quae in terra recondere disponebant, in thesaurum caelestem inpigra celeritate transferre, ut, si aliqui humanus casus acciderit, gaudeat qui de loco ruinoso emigravit, si autem nihil tale fuerit subsecutum, non contristetur, qui quandoque moriturus inmortali domino ad quem venturus est, bona propria commendavit. Itaque, fratres mei dilectissimi, ex eo quod quisque habet, secundum suas vires, quas ipse novit, facite quod soletis, alacriore animo quam soletis, et inter omnes saeculi huius molestias apostolicam exhortationem corde retinete, ubi ait: Dominus in proximo est; nihil solliciti fueritis. Talia mihi de vobis nuntientur, quibus noverim non propter meam praesentiam sed propter dei praeceptum, qui numquam est absens, vos solere facere quod multis annis me praesente et aliquando etiam me absente fecistis. Dominus vos in pace conservet, dilectissimi fratres; orate pro nobis.