Blessings of the Living And The Dead

Beati satis qui, ex vobis per haec gloriarum vestigia commeantes, jam de saeculo recesserunt, confectoque itinere virtutis ac fidei, ad complexum et osculum Domini, Domino ipso gaudente, venerunt. Sed et vestra non minor gloria, qui adhuc in certamine constituti et comitum glorias secuturi, pugnam diu geritis, immotaque et inconcussa fide stabiles quotidie spectaculum Deo vestris virtutibus exhibetis. Quo longior vestra pugna, hoc corona sublimior. Agon unus, sed multiplici praeliroum numerositate congestus. Famem vincitis et sitim spernitis, et squalorem carceris ac receptaculi poenalis horrorem roboris vigore calcatis. Poena illic subigitur, cruciatus obteritur, nec mors metuitur, sed optatur; quae scilicet immortalitatis praemio vincitur, ut vitae aeternitate qui vicerit coronetur. Qui nunc in vobis animus, quam sublime, quam capax pectus, ubi talia et tanta volvuntur, ubi non nisi Dei praecepta et Christi praemia cogitantur. Voluntas est illic tantum Dei; et in carne adhuc licet vobis positis, vita jam vivitur non praesentis saeculi, sed futuri. Sanctus Cyprianus, Epistola XV, Ad Moysen et Maximum et Caeteros Confessores Source: Migne PL 4.267a-268a

Abundantly blessed are they who, from you, passing along these footprints of glory, have already departed the world, and have completed the journey of virtue and faith unto the embrace and the kiss of the Lord, to the joy of the Lord Himself. But your glory is not less, who are yet engaged in the struggle, and, about to follow the glories of your friends, are long engaged in battle, and standing firm in an unmoved and unshaken faith, daily exhibit your virtues as a spectacle to God. The longer your combat, the greater the crown. The contest is one, but it is crowded with a multitude of trials. You conquer hunger and you despise thirst, and the squalor of prison and the horror of the place of punishment you tread under foot by the vigour of your courage. Punishment is there subdued, torture is crushed, nor is death feared but desired, since it is conquered by the reward of immortality, so that he who has conquered is crowned with eternal life. What now must be in your soul, how elevated, how large the heart, when such and so great things are considered, when nothing but the precepts of God and the rewards of Christ are meditated. Only there is the will God's will, and though you remain placed in the flesh, now you do not live the life of the present world, but of the future. Saint Cyprian of Carthage, from Letter 15, To Moses, Maximus and other Confessors