101 speech Holy Father — I have here in mind Celestine V — who was the first and since then the only who gave the example of placing in other hands the highest authority and government after God, for he was in a hurry to attain this knowledge. O how blessed and satisfied with yourself must you be, future religious, who on account of such a great, lasting, and perfect knowledge, that is so highly prized by you and so desired and dreamed of by many, that you have resigned from learning in school. And although you, dear students, on account of God have gotten rid of the polite, lay style of life and the lay attitude, that does not mean at all that you will be cut off from obtaining the knowledge of a higher kind; even more, you will be able to constantly deepen it. Seeing that unforeseen knowledge is most often infused by God in those who, having despised the charms of this world and having freely renounced the laws of disposing of oneself, enter into the narrow path leading to Heaven under the sweet yoke of the Cross. With the greatest knowledge having been divinely conceded to them, the most free slaves of the Eternal King, that is, the religious men, are wont to excel also in the realm of the liberal arts as well as in the area of various scientific disciplines. Because knowledge is a gift of God, therefore it can be granted precisely to the servants of God more quickly and in a more copious manner. Entirely appropriate, for since the Lord prefers to mark out, distinguish, and reward his own servant more than any other, the commander his soldier, the king his courtier, how much more perfectly does the Ruler of Heaven and earth, God, do this, who grants such great gifts to those who are most given over to Him, such that they themselves could barely hope for or expect. And because God grants various people different gifts, He is particularly generous in relation to religious, since He sometimes generously grants to them superfluous [things], [and] much more generously gives what is necessary for them.
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