Isidore de Péluse

The prayer of someone who treats other people's ordinary business as serious business.

Who was Isidore de Péluse?

A monk in the Nile delta, near Pelusium, he spent his life answering letters. Some two thousand of them survive, very short, addressed to bishops, to officials, to neighbours: a quarrel between two deacons, a servant at fault, a man chasing money. He took in everyone who came to his door.

In their own words

Do not, my excellent friend, strive after wealth, which is the parent of pride and arrogance, brings upon us a band of destructive pleasures, is the architect and fabricator of every evil, and alienates us from the love of God.

Letter to Martinianus, presbyter, in William Roberts, History of Letter-Writing, from the Earliest Period to the Fifth Century, London, William Pickering, 1843, p. 518; English by William Roberts (d. 1849)

That a soothing and seasonable speech has the power sometimes, like a particular medicine, of allaying an angry feeling, boiling in the interior of a man, I dare affirm; but whether in any thing I can say there exists a healing power that will be efficacious in the present instance, of that I am not so well assured.

Letter to Aemilianus and Pelagius, two deacons who were at variance with each other, in William Roberts, History of Letter-Writing, London, William Pickering, 1843, p. 517; English by William Roberts (d. 1849)

Habit is a powerful agent, and by degrees is changed into nature itself; so that some call it a second nature.

Letter, in William Roberts, History of Letter-Writing, London, William Pickering, 1843, p. 528; English by William Roberts (d. 1849)