Love And Letters

Breves brevibus reddidi litteras, occasionem utique breviter rescribendi de tuarum brevitate libenter accipiens. Et vere quid juvat veras, et, ut veraciter loqueris, aeternas amicitias vanis atque transitoriis jacitare verbulis? Quantalibet versuum diversitate, verborum multiplicitate, scriptorum varietate tuam mihi charitatem ostentare seu commendare coneris, minus certe sentio et exprimare quam diligis, idemque tu de me sentiendo non falleris. Cum tuae litterae in manus nostras venerunt, te in corde nostro qui eas miseras, invenerunt. Has quoque nostras nec me sine te scribere certus sum, nec te sine me confido lecturum. Laboramus quidem uterque ad alterutrum scriptitando, fatigantur et nuntii alterius ad alterum scripta protando: sed nunquid spiritus gravantur amando? Cessent igitur quae absque labore non possunt aetitari: et illud frequentetur, quod quanto attentius satagitur, tanto minus constat laborari. Quiescant, inquam, a dictando ingenia, labia a confabulando, a scribendo digiti, a discurredno nuntii: non autem quiescant corda die ac nocte meditari in lege Domini, quae est charitas. A quo negotio quanto quietiores sumus, tanto minus quiescimus: quantoque occupatiores sumus in illo, tanto nos quietiores sentimus ex illo. Amemus, et amemur: in altero nobis, in altero nostris consulentes. Nam quos amamus, in ipsis profecto requiescimus; a quibus autem amamur, ipsis nos in nobis requiem paramus. Porro amare in Deo, charitatem habere est: studere vero propter Deum amari, charitati servire est. Sanctus Bernardus Clarae Vallensis, Epistola XC Ad Ogerum Canonicum Regularem Source: Migne PL 182.221d-222b

I have replied briefly to your brief letter, gladly seizing on an occasion to match your brevity. And truly what does true, and as you truly say, eternal friendship gain from the casting about of vain and fleeting words? However you vary the phrases and multiply the words with which you strive to exhibit and commend your love to me, I have the firm impression that you express less than what you feel, and you would not err to think the same of me. When your letter came into my hands, it found you who had sent it already in my heart. And writing mine, I am certain I am not without you nor will you be without me when you come to read it. We labour over the letters we write to one another, we weary messengers who bear our writing to the other; yet is the spirit ever burdened by loving? Let us cease to do what cannot be done without toil, and turn to that which, as much as we give our attention to it, becomes so much less laborious. Let us rest our minds from composition, our lips from speaking, our hands from writings, and our messengers from their journeys, but let hearts not rest from meditating day and night on the law of the Lord, 1 which is love. For the more we rest from that activity, the less at rest we are, and the more occupied in that respect, the more at peace in all others. Let us love and let us be loved, on the one hand benefiting ourselves, on the other benefiting those for whom we care. For certainly in those we love we rest, and for those who love us we prepare a place of rest in ourselves. Moreover, to love someone in God is to have charity and to exert oneself to be loved for the sake of God is to serve charity. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, from Letter 90, to the Canon Regular Oger 1 Ps 1.2