On Prayer 11.2

For it would be absurd, when knowledge is now revealed to the worthy “through a mirror” and “in a riddle” but will then be revealed “face to face,” not to think the same of the other virtues, which, having been prepared in this life, are then perfected in the proper sense. And according to the divine word the one most important of the virtues is love of neighbor; and we must think that this is present much more in the saints who have fallen asleep toward those contending in this life than in those who are still in human weakness and contend alongside the weaker; for it is not only here that “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” applies to those who love the brothers. For it is fitting that the love of those who are outside the present life also should say: “The care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” And Christ too confesses that in each of the saints who is weak he is likewise weak, and is “in prison,” and naked, and a stranger, and hungry and thirsty; for who among the readers of the gospel does not know that Christ, by referring to himself what happens to believers, counts their sufferings as his own?