Therefore, we also bear the very sign of the cross on our forehead. Who understands it? I say this, brothers, because many do it and do not wish to understand. God seeks the doer of His signs, not a painter. If you bear the sign of the humility of Christ on your forehead, bear the imitation of the humility of Christ in your heart. However, we said, brothers, about giving place to the devil by opening doors to him of desire or fear. But what kind of desire, or what kind of fear? For we also desire the kingdom of heaven, and we fear hell. But just as those doors, the desire for temporal things and the fear of temporal punishments, often lead to wickedness and give place to the devil, so the desire for eternal things and the fear of eternal punishments makes a place in the heart for the word of God.
Earthly desire must be restrained.
Briefly then, Brothers: if we wish to live well, let us love more what God promises than what this world promises. And let us fear more what God threatens than what this world threatens. Is what we said something great or long? A temptation of some fraud comes to you. You want to commit fraud to acquire money. God promises eternal kingdoms of heaven to those who do not commit fraud. Greed for money overcomes you. For who is it that does not want the kingdoms of heaven? But to prefer earthly things more is to sin, to prefer what is present and not to believe what is future, to prefer what man sees and not to desire what God promises, when what man sees can also be taken away from his eyes, even that which is possessed can be lost; but what God promises cannot meanwhile be seen with the eye of the flesh, and when someone reaches God's promises he does not fear losing them, for no one is more powerful than He who gave them. Therefore, Brothers, adhere with love to God's promises, and the desires of the world will not overcome you.
Let us not fear the threats of men.
Again, the temptation of fear comes. Everyone says to you: "Give false testimony for me." First, he promises. But when he has not deceived, if by chance you prefer the promises of God to the promises of men, greed does not win. Through threat he tempts and begins to threaten horrible things. Perhaps he is powerful in the city, powerful in the world. He seems capable of doing what he threatens. The fear of present evil conquers you, which God could indeed avert from you, if it seemed advantageous to Him; and if He does not want to avert it, you should understand that He would not allow it to happen to you unless He knew it would benefit you. The same God diverted the fire from the three boys. Has God changed because He did not avert the sword from the martyrs? The same God of the three boys was the God of the Maccabees. Those escaped from the fire, those were tortured by flames. Both, however, conquered in the eternal God. For neither those were delighted by this temporal life, nor were those broken by temporal threats.
Therefore, do not fear the man threatening you. For what is man? He is likened to vanity, his days pass like a shadow. Either he will not harm you, and that shadow will pass before its sting can reach you; for God is powerful. Or if he is permitted to harm, he will harm only your shadow for a time, that is, your transient affairs, your temporal life, your old life. For up to the end of death we carry something of the old man. He can harm your temporal life, but no one can take away your eternal life from you. He will remove the impediments by which you are held here. And you will cling to God, to whom you are already bound by anticipated hope and love.
Therefore, it is most elegantly said in the Psalms about the evil man: "You have worked deceit like a sharp razor." Thus the Spirit of God mocks him. What does it observe in the razor? Not because men can be killed with a razor, but for what purpose the razor was made. However, it was made for shaving hair. What is so superfluous on the body as hair? With how much urgency, how much effort, how much caution, how much intention it is sharpened, so that it shaves hair. In the same way, the evil man takes himself aside, thinks, rethinks, devises plans, places fraud upon fraud, seeks machination, prepares accomplices, gathers false witnesses, sharpens the razor. What will he do to the just man, except shave off the superfluous?
We should not love those things that pass away.
Therefore, Brothers, if you want to be ready to follow the will of God, what we say to you, we first say to ourselves, indeed He who speaks securely says it to all, if we want to be ready to follow the will of God, let us not love the things that pass away, let us not think that happiness is found in that which is called in this age. For this is what those foreigners thought. They regarded all happiness in temporal things, all sweetness in the shadow, not in the light itself, not in the truth itself. So much so in this psalm, which is addressed to Goliath, pay attention to the latter parts of the psalm. In completely clear words and in the most unambiguous speech, which does not require an interpreter or expositor, but by the mercy of God, they are so placed that no one can say: "Behold, he said it as he wished, and interpreted it by his own wit, he perceived it as he wished," they are placed in such a way that no one can excuse themselves. These words are placed by David speaking, that is, by the new life, the life of Christ, the life given to us through Christ, mocking the old life, the old happiness of men, and those who place their hope in it, and those who achieve it and rejoice in it.
To whom and when God is to be called propitious.
For it seems that the righteous labor in this world, and the unjust live happily in this world. And as if God is sleeping, neglecting human affairs, those are often elevated with impunity, while these are often broken by infirmity and think it does them no good to live well, because they do not have those things with which sinners, wicked, and impious men seem to abound. And as long as they ask such things from God as if they are granted for their greatness, they are in error. And care must be taken lest they be given over to the power of their desires. For it is said: God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts. And God is more merciful when he does not grant the superfluous and trifling things one asks for, but listens in order to heal by not giving. For indeed, who does not see why men seek those things? That they may spend on their luxuries, on trifles, on the most insane spectacles, men ask to have these things from God.
Give me a man from the world; let him ask wealth from God, let it be given, and observe the innumerable snares of his death that follow. Then he oppresses the poor, a mortal man becomes proud over an equal human being, he seeks vain honors from men. In order to acquire them, he displays to them the frivolities of wickedness, the frivolities of evil desire. He buys games and bears, gives his property to wild-beast fighters, while Christ hungers in the poor. What need is there to say more, brothers? You yourselves think about what we are silent on, how many evils men commit with their superfluous things when the providence of these things happens to them. Is it not better, when such a person is able to use the abundance of present things in this way, that God takes it away from him rather than gives it to him? Is it not then mercy?
And he will say: "I have acted rightly and have taken nothing that was not mine, and you have not heard me. From what I have, I give to the needy, I take from no one. I ask from you, you give." As if indeed he gives you a villa unless another loses a villa. If it is said to you: "Sell your villa," you shudder as if at a curse, you think an injury has been done to you. You hold hatred in your heart, because you heard from a man that you should sell a villa as if you could buy unless another sells. Therefore, what you very much desire to buy and wish to buy, if it is evil to sell, you seek evil for another. It is good to find a chapel of solidi on the road, which when you have found, you say: "God gave it to me," as if you could find it unless another loses it. Why then do you not desire the good of those treasures, which all can possess with you without distress? You desire gold, desire justice. You cannot have gold, unless another loses. You both embrace justice, and you both are expanded.
Earthly happiness must be despised, heavenly things must be desired.
Let us return therefore to the psalm, so that your Charity may understand that they are foreigners who think that all happiness is merely present. But do you judge yourself worthy that God should give even these? Consider how you use them. If He did not give, know that it is beneficial for you because the Good Father did not give. For when your son cries to give him a beautiful knife with a gilded handle, no matter how much he cries, you do not give him that which would harm him. "Lord, deliver me from the hand of foreign sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity." And he explains what vanity he speaks of and what right hand. For he calls the right hand of iniquity the happiness of this age. Not that it is not found among the good, but when the good have it, they have it in the left hand, not in the right hand. They have eternal happiness in the right hand; they have temporal happiness in the left hand. However, the desire for eternal things and eternal happiness should not be mixed with the desire for temporal things, that is, present and temporal happiness. And this is: "Let not your left hand know what your right hand does." Therefore: "Their right hand is a right hand of iniquity."
Listen now to how they have spoken vanity, and how they have the right hand of iniquity. Let us all listen, it benefits you. Let us listen, so that you do not say you have not heard, because it was said to the servant: "You should give, and I would demand." And we said yesterday that we are the servants who give; there is another who demands. Our sisters, unwilling to listen, as if they do not want to endure the exactor. In vain, my brothers, no one should flatter themselves here. It is one thing not to have received, another to have refused to receive. He who refuses the gift of God is held guilty of that refusal. For just as it was said to the steward servant: "Why did you not give?" so it shall be said to the servant to whom it was appointed to dispense: "Why did you not receive?" If there was no one to give, you will excuse yourself. But if the readers sound forth, even when the expounders are silent—and the word of God is preached everywhere, and truly it is said: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and the heat of the word of God is spread everywhere, and there is no one who can hide from its heat—there will be nothing to say in the judgment of God. Brothers, let us hear and do. If we want to have hope, let us not excuse ourselves. Often a beggar, requesting a single coin, will
The door sings to you the commandments of God.
Let us hear then: Whose mouth speaks vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. Behold the happiness of the world, where those who speak vanity place their hope, and whose right hand is of iniquity. For thus it begins to say: Whose sons are like well-established saplings. Happiness is lawful. Here he does not speak of frauds, perjuries, robberies, crimes. He speaks of happiness as if of the innocent. And if this is to be despised, how much more should they be mourned who also commit robberies, who commit thefts, who commit crimes, who commit murders, who commit adulteries and other things which even worldly happiness condemns?
Psalm 143 is explained.
Behold what kind of man He wants to be of new life, what kind of man He wants to be belonging to pastoral vessels, and to the grace of God, and to the milk by which we are nourished. Pay attention now: Their sons are like newly established shoots; their daughters adorned as if in the likeness of a temple. Perhaps this is why the sisters did not want to listen. Therefore, let them hear, whether they want to or not, and learn to come to the Lord's house, not in the pride of Goliath but in the humility of David. Are these things really to be explained? Are they obscure? Men speak vanity, and they are called foreigners. They do not belong to the inheritance of Christ, to His kingdom to whom we say: Our Father. They are counted as foreigners. And what happiness do they declare? Their sons are like newly established shoots, as if a propagation of propagations. "He has many sons, many grandsons; he is secure against the accidents of death." As if a single event doesn't often wipe out thousands of men. Their sons are like newly established shoots. Behold, suppose the sons are indeed like newly established shoots. Do not the nearby forest fires sometimes consume even the young shoots in the woods? Their daughters are adorned as if in the likeness of a temple. Let us swiftly move on from here. It is necessary to consider the modesty of women. They should recognize by their own possession what they have, which we are ashamed to mention. Their daughters are adorned as if in the likeness of a temple. Their storehouses full, overflowing from one into another, just as we say of the abundant: "He has nowhere to put it, he doesn't know what he has." One storehouse is filled and the fruits overflow; the possessions are abundant, the storehouses overflow from one into another.
Their sheep, fertile, multiplying in their goings out. Few enter; they give birth, and many go out: multiplying in their goings out. In the previous year there were so many, this year there are so many. There is rejoicing and exulting. Goliath swells, and proudly challenges to combat in such prosperity: "Who can confront me? Who dares?" If men to whom these things abound do not say that, if each one does not feel it daily within himself? He has something more than his neighbor. Does he not say: "Who can confront me? Or if this neighbor has wronged me, will I not show him?" See if it is not Goliath challenging to combat. But David advances, unarmed with weapons of war, armed with a few stones. All pride will be overthrown, that is, the just man; as the martyrs did, they overthrew the unjust. And at that time when they seemed to be vanquished, they were themselves victorious, when in them their leader, the devil, was overcome.
Let us wish for and love lasting goods.
But observe that happiness: their sheep multiplying in their goings, their oxen fat. There is no ruin of the fence. For the fence is often accustomed to be a hedge. There is no ruin of the fence, nor an exit. Everything whole, everything perfect, everything full. Nor is there a cry in their streets: no disputes, no tumults. See what kind of happiness he describes as if of the innocent, lest anyone say: "But he said this about those who seize the belongings of others." Nothing is said of this here, elsewhere there is mention of such. For it is manifest that the wicked are to be punished. And from here they should understand what punishment awaits them, when anyone innocent uses these things proudly and immoderately, he is revolted by God and counted among the children of foreigners. For that rich man was not seeking foreign fruits, to whom the region succeeded in its fruits, and when he was burning, having nowhere to gather the worldly fruits, and did not see the poor in whom he might store treasure in heaven: "I will destroy," he says, "my barns, and build larger ones and I will fill them." From where if not from his own fruits? And I will say to my soul: "You have many goods, be satisfied." But God said to him: "Fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Whose will these things be which you have prepared?" Just as in the Gospel, Brothers, the man rejoicing in temporal happiness was rebuked, although that happiness was from his own field, not from the spoils of others, so also in this psalm temporal happiness is rebuked, so that the soul renewed and regenerated by the grace of milk may learn to desire that perpetual and eternal blessedness. Therefore see how he connects it: Whose sons are as newly planted. Their daughters decorated as the likeness of a temple. Their storerooms full, spilling from one to another. Their sheep fertile, multiplying in their goings; their oxen fat. There is no ruin of the fence, nor exit, nor cry in their streets. Blessed they said is the people who have these. But who said it? Whose mouth spoke vanity. For above they are described.
But what do you say? For they call blessed the people who have these things. What do I say? Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord. Therefore, blessed is that people, who, for their sons and daughters adorned, for the fatness of oxen, for the fertility of sheep, for the fullness of cellars, for the integrity of buildings, for peace and civil disputes and quarrels, for all this happiness, wishes to possess their God, so that they have Him for everything, who created all things, and say: But it is good for me to cling to God. Let him worship Him freely. Let him worship when He gives these things, and when He takes away, and when He does not give, and let him fear nothing as much as that He takes Himself away. And so the Christian people, Brothers, who say in their hearts: "Let Him take away whatever He wants, as long as He does not take Himself away from me," blessed is the people, whose God is the Lord.