St. Augustine
voluisti, sive in aliis, quaecumque nostra in tuas sanctas manus forte pervenerint, quia sicut dei data sic etiam mea errata cogito, non solum curam legentis inpendas, sed etiam censuram corrigentis adsumas.
1Secundum spiritum, quantum domino placet atque ipse vires praebere dignatur, recte sumus; corpore autem ego in lecto sum; nec ambulare enim nec stare nec sedere possum rhagadis vel exochadis dolore et tumore. Sed etiam sic, quoniam id domino placet, quid aliud dicendum est, nisi quia recte sumus? Potius enim, si id nolumus quod ille vult, nos culpandi sumus, quam ille non recte aliquid vel facere vel sinere existimandus est. Nosti haec omnia; sed quia mihi es alter ego, quid libentius tecum loquerer, nisi quod mecum loquor? Commendamus ergo sanctis orationibus tuis et dies et noctes nostras, ut oretis pro nobis, ne diebus intemperanter utamur, ut noctes aequo animo toleremus, ut, etiam si ambulemus in medio umbrae mortis, nobiscum sit dominus, ne timeamus mala.
Letters of St. Augustine
the critical attitude of a reviewer, to any works of mine that happen to come into your holy hands, both those on which it was your kind and fatherly desire that I should try my hand, and any others. For I am fully conscious of God’s gifts, and no less of my own mistakes.
In spirit I am well, so far as it is the Lord’s good1 pleasure and as He deigns to grant me strength; in body, I am confined to bed. I can neither walk nor stand nor sit down because of the pain and swelling of piles or tumours.b Yet even so, since that is the Lord’s good pleasure, what else should I say than that I am well? If we do not like what pleases Him, we ourselves are rather to assume the blame than to imagine that He is wrong in what He either does or allows. This is all familiar to you, but since you are my second self, what can I say to you with more pleasure than what I say to myself? To your holy prayers then I commend both my nights and my days; pray for me, that I may not squander my days and that I may endure my nights with patience; pray that even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord may be with me that I may fear no evil.c