03-04# The Rule of our Holy Father Benedict. Chapter 27: How Solicitous the Abbot Should Be For the Excommunicate
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With all solicitude let the abbot be careful for offending brethren, because: “It is not the healthy that need a physician, but those that are ill.” And so he ought to use every means in his power like a wise physician and send colleagues, that is to say wise senior brethren, to console as it were hiddenly the wavering brother and incite him to make humble satisfaction; and console him that he be not swallowed up by over-much sorrow, but as the Apostle says: “Let love be strengthened in him”; and let prayer be offered for him by all.

For the abbot ought to be solicitous with much diligence and to take care, with all sagacity and industry, that not one be lost from among the number of the sheep entrusted to him; for he must know that he has undertaken a cure of weak souls, not a tyranny over strong ones: and let him fear the threat of the prophet through whom God says: “Ye took up that which ye saw to be sleek; and that which was sickly ye cast away.” And let him imitate the Good Shepherd’s example of love, for He, having left upon the mountains ninety-nine sheep, went away to seek one sheep that had strayed, whose infirmity He compassionated to such a degree that He deigned to place that sheep upon His sacred shoulders and so to carry it back to the flock.