“They are confounded, because I have hoped.” When the wicked inflict evils upon the good, they are overjoyed at the success of their deceptions, if they see the good shaken from interior hope. For the wicked reckon the spread of their error to be the greatest gain, for they rejoice to have companions in perdition. But when the good person’s hope is rooted within, never bent to the ground by outward evils, confusion seizes the soul of the wicked. Their inability to get at the innermost parts of the distressed results in shame for the wicked. Their cruelty has not produced the effect they expected.… “They came even to me and were ashamed.” For lost sinners “come even to holy church” on the day of judgment, in that they are brought even then to behold its glory. For the punishment of their guilt is even greater when they see what they have lost as they are rejected. Then shame covers the wicked, when the conscience bears witness and convicts them in the sight of the Judge. At that time th...
49. As though he said in plain words, ‘I feared God then, when, buoyed up with prosperity, I felt no hurts of the scourge. But ye, who fear not God from love, dread Him from the stroke of the rod alone.
