I will confess to you, Lord, with all my heart. The nature of a wound determines the medication to be applied. Just as the body has wounds of various kinds, so also the soul has its passions and its wounds, and we must do penance in proportion to the nature of our sin. If a person makes confession of all his sins, he is acknowledging his sins to the Lord wholeheartedly. If, for example, someone has committed fornication and he confesses only that and is greedy, or quick-tempered, or a slanderer or blasphemer and is full of faults and vices, his confession is not sincere. The person who repents for all the sins and passions of his soul is the person who is able to say, I confess and give thanks to you, O Lord, with all my heart. For you have heard the words of my mouth.^[1] This verse is not found in the Hebrew text. Nonetheless, what it means is, In my confession I have poured out my whole heart, O Lord; I have confessed all my sins and faults, for I have not admitted merely one sin to you, and you have listened to me graciously.

It is no secret that angels are frequently present, invisibly, at the side of the elect, in order to defend them from the snares of the cunning enemy and uphold them by the great gift of heavenly desire. The apostle attests to this when he says, Are they not all ministering spirits sent to serve on account of those who receive an inheritance of salvation?^[1] Nevertheless, we should believe that the angelic spirits are especially present to us when we give ourselves in a special way to divine services, that is, when we enter a church and open our ears to sacred reading, or give our attention to psalm singing, or apply ourselves to prayer or celebrate the solemnity of the mass. Hence the apostle advises women to have a veil over their heads in church on account of the angels. And a prophet says, I will sing psalms to you in the sight of the angels. We are not permitted to doubt that where the mysteries of the Lord’s body and blood are being enacted, a gathering of the citizens from on high is present—those who were keeping such careful watch at the tomb where [Christ’s] venerable body had been placed and from which he had departed by rising. Hence we must strive meticulously my brothers, when we come into the church to pay the due service of divine praise or to perform the solemnity of the mass, to be always mindful of the angelic presence and to fulfill our heavenly duty with fear and fitting veneration, following the example of the women devoted to God who were afraid when the angels appeared to them at the tomb, and who, we are told, bowed their faces to the earth.

Perhaps because [the psalm] said, The Lord is sublime and observes lowly things, you say to yourself, Then he does not observe me. What could be more unfortunate than you, if he does not observe you but ignores you? Observing indicates compassion; ignoring indicates contempt. But no doubt, because the Lord observes lowly things, you imagine you escape his notice, because you are not humble or lowly, you are high and mighty, you are proud. That is not the way to be missed by the eyes of God. I mean, just see what it says there: The Lord is sublime. Sublime indeed. How are you going to get to him? Will you look for a ladder? Look for the wood of humility,^[1] and you have already gotten to him. The Lord is sublime, he observes lowly things, but high and mighty things (do not imagine you escape notice, you that are so proud) but high and mighty things he knows from afar. He knows them, all right, but from afar. Salvation is far from sinners.^[2]

We have heard, and it is clear; we had gone outside, we have been sent within. O would that I had found, you said, some high and lonely mountain! For, I believe, because God is on high, he hears me from a high place. Because you are on a mountain, do you think that you are near God and that you are heard quickly, as if shouting from nearby? He dwells on high, but he looks on the lowly. The Lord is near. To whom? Perhaps to the high? To those who are contrite of heart. It is a wondrous thing: he both lives on high and draws near to the lowly. He looks on the lowly, but the high he knows from afar. He sees the proud from afar; the higher they seem to themselves, so much of the less does he approach them.

Today we are keeping the solemn festival of the ascension. If, therefore, we celebrate the Lord’s ascension in a manner that is right, holy, faithful, devout and pious, we must ascend with him and lift up our hearts. Now as we ascend, let us not be lifted up with pride or presume on our merits as if they were our own. For we ought indeed to lift up our hearts, but to the Lord alone. A heart lifted up but not to the Lord is called pride; a heart lifted up to the Lord is called a refuge. See, brethren, the great miracle. God is on high. You exalt yourself, and he flees from you; you humble yourself, and he descends to you. Why is this? Because the Lord is exalted, yet the lowly he sees, and the proud he knows from afar. He recognizes what is lowly from close at hand in order that he may raise it up; what is high, that is, what is proud, he knows from afar in order that he may bring it down. Christ truly arose from the dead in order to give us hope, because the person who dies rises again. He gave us assurance, so that we might not despair in dying and think our whole life ended in death. We were troubled about our very soul, but by rising from the dead he also gave us confidence in the resurrection of the body.