The Humility of Your Request

I am truly delighted at the very plentiful fruits of your humility. I saw them with no small interest when I was formerly received as a guest in that cell of yours. And I am very glad that you receive with such respect the charge given by us, the least of all Christians, and the words I took the liberty of speaking, so that, if I am not mistaken, you carry them out the moment we speak them. And though, as I remember, the importance of the words hardly deserves the effort you give them, yet you hide the merits of your virtue as if no breath had ever reached you of the things you practice every day. But this is worthy of the highest praise: that you declare those teachings of the saints still unknown to you, as if you were still beginners. So we will summarize as briefly as possible what you ask of us so eagerly. For we must obey the commands of such old friends as you even beyond our strength and ability. [a]

Many have published a great deal, not only in speech but also in writing, on the value and the appeasing power of penitence. They have shown how useful it is, how strong, and how full of grace: so that when God is offended by our past sins and on the point of inflicting a most just punishment for such offenses, penitence somehow, if it is not wrong to say so, holds him back, and, if I may put it this way, stays the right hand of the Avenger even against his will. But I have no doubt that all this is well known to you, either from your natural wisdom or from your tireless study of Holy Scripture, so that from this the first shoots, so to speak, of your conversion sprang up. Indeed, you are anxious not about the nature of penitence but about its end and the signs of amends, and so with a very shrewd question you ask about what others have left out.