Let this be the model to which your lives conform: to be in thought and desire at home in the everlasting fatherland with Christ, and yet shirk no kind service that can be done for Christ’s sake during the toilsome journey through life; to be willing to follow Christ the Lord on his upward journey to the Father and thus become clear-sighted, purified and revived in mediation, not to refuse to follow Christ’s going down to one’s brothers and sisters, and through such activity being everywhere by turns to everyone. Nothing that may be done for Christ’s sake must be despised, and nothing must be desired that is not for Christ’s sake; Christ is ever the one and only source often longing for him that finds expression both
in the leisure that concerns itself with Christ as one, and in the willing service of many where Christ is manifold.
Isaac of Stella
