The young abbot meditates on the singular role of the Virgin Mother of Christ 'to satisfy [his] own devotion', and in doing so bequeathes his own love of Mary and of Scripture to his Order and to the Church.

The burgundian reformer abbot draws a picture of the perfect frontier bishop, and holds him up as a model for bishops everywhere. Conversion is used here not in the modern sense of transferring from one ecclesiastical body to another, but in the patristic and monastic sense of metanoia, turning one's entire being wholly to God.