"You will tell me, perhaps, that, high-born as you are, reared in luxury and used to lie softly, you cannot do without wine and dainties, and would find a stricter rule of life unendurable. If so, I can only say: Live, then, by your own rule, since God's rule is too hard for you. Not that the Creator and Lord of all takes pleasure in a rumbling and empty stomach or in fevered lungs; but that these are indispensable as means to the preservation of chastity."
January 1, 1970