Letter 1: You're right to remind me, my dear Donatus — I not only remember my promise, I'll admit this is the perfect time to...

You're right to remind me, my dear Donatus — I not only remember my promise, I'll admit this is the perfect time to keep it. The grape harvest invites the mind to relax and enjoy the appointed rest that comes as the year winds down. The setting matches the season: the pleasant look of the gardens, the gentle breezes of a mild autumn — everything soothes and cheers the senses. In a place like this, it's a delight to spend the day in conversation, training our minds on the divine teachings through the study of sacred Scripture. And so that no uninvited intruder can break in on our talk, and no household racket can disturb it, let's find this shaded spot. The neighboring thickets guarantee us privacy, and the trailing vines that creep along the supporting reeds have woven themselves into a leafy shelter — a porch made of green things. Here we can clothe our thoughts in words. While our eyes enjoy the pleasant view of trees and vines, the mind is nourished by what we hear as much as by what we see. But I know that right now your only pleasure and interest is our conversation. You've turned your eyes away from every other sight and fixed your gaze on me. And so I'll share what I can — what the measure of my limited abilities and the inspiration of the Lord allow. I couldn't have believed it — I freely admit this — that a man could be reborn. I couldn't believe that a person drenched in sin and hardened by all his years of wrongdoing could suddenly be washed clean, put off all his old corruption, and emerge genuinely changed. "How is this possible?" I said. "How can a transformation so radical be instantaneous? How can habits so deeply ingrained be stripped away all at once — vices rooted not just in years but in a person's very nature?" That's what I used to say to myself. I was tangled in the countless errors of my former life and didn't believe I could escape them. I'd made peace with my faults. They'd become comfortable. I treated them as practically native to me. But after the stain of my past was washed away by the water of rebirth, and light from above poured into my cleansed and purified heart — after I received the Spirit from heaven and a second birth made me a new man — then, in a way that defies description, the things I'd doubted became certain. What had been hidden was revealed. What had been dark was illuminated. What had seemed impossible became possible. What was born of the flesh and had lived in sin began to belong to God and was quickened by the Holy Spirit. You yourself know — you recognize it as well as I do — what death of sin and what life of virtue that day of rebirth both killed and gave birth to in me. You know it, and I don't boast when I say so. Self-praise is a disgusting thing. But what deserves not boasting but gratitude is what we attribute not to human ability but to the gift of God. That we no longer sin comes from God. That we once sinned was human. The power is divine; the weakness was ours. And now, if you look around at the world with unclouded eyes, you'll see that the things the crowd chases are hollow and false. Riches? Nothing but a gilded anxiety. Political honors? An empty name. The thundering eloquence of the courtroom? A fraud in fine clothing. Even the pleasures people kill themselves to obtain — how quickly they pass, and what bitterness they leave behind. The whole world is a stage of cruelty, fraud, and violence. Walk through it with your eyes open and you'll want only one thing: to get free of it. And the way to get free is through prayer, through reading, through a life turned toward God — which is the life I've found, and which I urge on you with everything in me.

Epistle 1