Letter 1134: Patience is not passive endurance but active resistance to despair.
On Christ's saying: "Blessed are you when men revile you." The Lord Christ called blessed those who for his sake endure all things to the end. The Law distinguished between holy and profane, but they did not know that Christ, transcending the legal anointing, bestowed a greater sanctification through his own blood. The beatitude does not promise happiness in the worldly sense but blessedness in the divine sense — the approval of God himself. The one who suffers reproach for Christ's sake shares in Christ's own experience and therefore shares in his glory. But it is essential that the suffering be truly for Christ and not for one's own failings, and that the reproaches be false and not deserved. When both conditions are met — innocence of the charge and faithfulness to Christ — then the promise holds: great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
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