To Gregoria, Who Asked to Be Told Her Sins Were Forgiven

Gregory to Gregoria, lady of the bedchamber to the empress. [a] I have received the letters of your sweetness that I had longed for, in which you have taken pains from beginning to end to accuse yourself of a multitude of sins. But I know that you love Almighty God fervently, and I trust in his mercy that the sentence spoken about a certain holy woman comes from the mouth of the Truth about you as well: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, for she loved much” (Luke 7, verse 47). And how they were forgiven is shown also by what follows afterward: that she sat at the Lord’s feet and heard the word from his mouth (Luke 10, verse 39). For, caught up into the contemplative life, she had risen above the active life, which her sister Martha still pursued (Luke 10, verse 40). She also searched earnestly for her buried Lord, and, stooping over the tomb, she did not find his body. But even when the disciples went away, she remained standing before the door of the tomb. The one she sought as dead she was counted worthy to see alive, and she announced to the disciples that he had risen again. And this came about by the wonderful arrangement of God’s loving-kindness: that life should be announced by a woman’s mouth, because it was by a woman’s mouth that death was first tasted in Paradise. And at another time too, with another Mary, she saw the Lord after his resurrection and held his feet. Bring before your eyes, I beg you, what hands held whose feet. That woman who had been a sinner in the city, those hands that had been defiled with wickedness, touched the feet of him who sits at the right hand of the Father above all the angels. Let us weigh, if we can, how deep that heavenly loving-kindness is, that a woman who had been plunged by sin into the depth of the whirlpool should be lifted so high on the wing of love through grace. It is fulfilled, sweet daughter, it is fulfilled, what was promised to us by the prophetic voice about this time of the holy church: “And in that day the house of David will be an open fountain for the washing of the sinner and of her who is unclean” (Zechariah 13, verse 1). For the house of David is an open fountain for washing to us sinners, because we are washed from the filth of our wickedness by the mercy now revealed through the son of David, our Savior. [b]

But as for what your sweetness has added in your letters, that you will keep pressing me until I write that it has been revealed to me that your sins are forgiven: you have asked for something difficult, and even something unprofitable. Difficult, because I am unworthy to have a revelation made to me. Unprofitable, because you ought not to become secure about your sins until, on the last day of your life, you can no longer weep over them. Until that day comes, you ought always to be suspicious and always fearful, afraid of your faults, and you ought to wash them with daily tears. Certainly the apostle Paul had already gone up into the third heaven. He had also been caught up into Paradise and had heard secret words that it was not lawful for a man to speak (Second Corinthians 12, verses 2 to 4). And yet, still fearful, he said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, so that, while I preach to others, I myself should not by any means be rejected” (First Corinthians 9, verse 27). One who is caught up into heaven is still afraid; and shall one whose way of life is still on earth already want not to be afraid? Consider, most sweet daughter, that security is usually the mother of carelessness. So you ought not to have security in this life, for it would make you careless. For it is written, “Happy is the man who is always afraid” (Proverbs 28, verse 14). And again it is written, “Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in him with trembling” (Psalm 2, verse 11). In short, then, in the time of this life trembling must take hold of your soul, so that afterward it may rejoice without end in the joy of security. May Almighty God fill your soul with the grace of his Holy Spirit, and, after the tears you shed every day in prayer, bring you to eternal joys.