Portrait of an abbot, half-length, in a white cassock, before a draped curtain, a landscape beyond, Italian School, c. 17th century. (Source)

I came across this passage in Lady Amabel Kerr’s biography of Cardinal Baronius, as republished by Mediatrix Press in 2015. It comes a letter sent by the Abbot of St. Martin’s to Baronius when the latter was “in a fit of despondency…as to the real value of the Annals” (Kerr 154). I felt it was a good bit of advice generally, and thought I’d make it more readily available here for those who might derive some benefit therefrom. The translation is, no doubt, from Lady Kerr’s own hand. It can be found on page 154 of the volume.

Do not be cast down. Eat the bread of life and drink of eternal wisdom; and so will you more easily reach the Mount of God. You have not got to live for yourself alone, but for the Church of God and the good of your fellow men. Acquit yourself manfully, and your heart will be comforted, and God will sustain you. Truly it belongs to our mortality to be filled with fear when we look forward to the day of our judgment; but perceiving as we do so many earnests of our eternal happiness, and experiencing as we do the work of the Spirit of God within us, why should we be anxious and tormented of soul? Be of good heart, my Cesare, and think of nothing but of persevering until you have completed your work, which is so pleasing to the Church, and which will live for ever. When it is finished, then by all means devote yourself solely to the thoughts of eternal life; and I feel confident that at the last day the just Judge will give to you, who have worn yourself out by your labours for Him, a crown of justice.