28. To The Monk Gundulf.
The Letters of St. Anselm 121
28. TO THE MONK GUNDULF.
Anselm assures Gundulf of their mutual, intimate friendship and love and sends him three versions of a prayer to Saint Mary.
TO DOM GUNDULF: BROTHER ANSELM, WISHING WHAT ANSELM
CAN TO GUNDULF.
THERE IS NO NEED for my lips to speak at length about the constancy of our lasting friendship to someone whom
I know to be my other heart in mutual affection. And there fore to state briefly what you already know: just as the love
I have had for you from the beginning has never changed in me by diminishing, so I am anxious that it may always be altered by increasing.
A certain brother has asked me, not once but frequently, to compose a great prayer to holy Mary. What he, being present, asked outwardly, you, being absent, persuaded me of inwardly. For since I expected it to be yours when it was completed, I therefore agreed more willingly to what he wanted. Therefore I wrote the one prayer I had ben asked for, but knowing that I had not satisfied the petitioner by this I was encouraged to write another. Since I am similar ly not yet satisfied with this one, I have written a third which seems satisfactory for the moment.1
Accept, therefore, those which were written for your in tention and do not condemn the length which was caused by someone else's request. If only they were so long that, ere the end is reached, the compunction of contrition or of love may through divine grace be found in them by whoever reads or rather, meditates on them, for that is the reason they were written. Accordingly, with this in mind, I have divided these prayers into paragraphs according to their sense, so that, anticipating the boredom of their length, you may be able to begin reading them wherever you choose.2 c. 10723