For our salvation the Son of God is made the Son of man. Nine months he awaits his birth in the womb, undergoes the most revolting conditions and comes forth covered with blood, to be swathed in rags and covered with caresses. He who clasps the world in his fist is contained in the narrow limits of a manger. I say nothing of the thirty years during which he lives in obscurity, satisfied with the poverty of his parents. When he is scourged, he holds his peace; when he is crucified, he prays for his crucifiers. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.^[1] The only fitting return that we can make to him is to give blood for blood; and, as we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, gladly to lay down our lives for our Redeemer. What saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it? Righteous Abel is murdered. Abraham is in danger of losing his wife. And, as I must not enlarge my book unduly, seek for yourself: you will find that all holy people have suffered adversity. Solomon alone lived in luxury, and perhaps it was for this reason that he fell. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.^[2] Which is best—for a short time to do battle, to carry stakes for the palisades, to bear arms, to faint under heavy bucklers, that ever afterwards we may rejoice as victors? Or to become slaves forever, just because we cannot endure for a single hour?^[3]

But I do not somehow think that this^[1] is what the Holy Spirit was chiefly concerned to remind us of in this psalm, where it says, Let us weep before the Lord who made us. In another place it says, it is he who made us, and not we ourselves,^[2] which, as I remarked, no Christian doubts. Because not only did God create the first human being, from whom come all people, but God also creates each and every human being today—he who said to one of his saints, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.^[3] So at the beginning he created people without other people; now he creates people from people. Still, whether it is people without people or people from people, it is he who made us, and not we ourselves.^[4]

So at the first and easy sense of these words—still a true one, of course—let us worship him, brothers, and prostrate ourselves before him and cry before the Lord who made us. He did not, after all, make us and now desert us. He did not go to the trouble of making us only to abandon us. Let us worship before the Lord who made us, because we did not worship when he made us, and yet he made us all the same. So having made us before we worshiped him, is he going to desert us when we worship him? If someone were doubting whether he would be listened to when he prayed, Scripture reassures him when it says, Let us cry before the Lord who made us. Of course he listens to those he made; of course he cannot fail to care for those he made.

Do not despair. You are sick, approach him^[1] and be healed; you are blind, approach him and be enlightened.^[2] Those of you who are healthy, thank him for it; those of you who are sick, run to him to be healed. All of you, say, Come, let us worship and prostrate ourselves before him, and let us weep before the Lord who made us, made us human beings and saved us. You see, if it was he that made us human beings, while we saved ourselves, it means we have done something better than he has. I mean, a saved human being is better than an unsaved one. So if God made you a human being, and you made yourself a good human being, what you made is better. Do not lift yourself up above God; submit yourself to God, worship, prostrate yourself, confess to the one who made you; because nobody can recreate except the one who creates; nobody can make you new but the one who made you in the first place.

Indeed, no one should continue longer time in his sins out of hope for the mercy of God, since no one wishes to be ill for a longer time in the body because of the hope for future health. Those who decline to give up their sins and vices and promise themselves forgiveness from God are thus frequently visited beforehand by the sudden fury of God, so that they find neither time for conversion nor the blessing of forgiveness. Therefore, holy Scripture mercifully forewarns each one of us when it says, Do not delay to turn back to the Lord, and do not postpone it from day to day; for suddenly the wrath of the Lord will come on you, and at the time of punishment you will perish.^[1] Blessed David also says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. The blessed Paul agrees that we should not continue in our sins in these words: Take care, brothers, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God. Encourage yourselves daily while it is still ‘today’ so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sins.^[2]

Did not the prophet, speaking in behalf of God, say to you, Forty years I was offended with that generation,^[1] and I said, ‘These always err in heart.’ How was it, then, that at that time God did not turn away from you? How is it that after you killed your children, after your idolatries, after your many acts of arrogance, after your unspeakable ingratitude, that God even allowed the great Moses to be a prophet among you and that he worked wondrous and marvelous signs himself? What happened in the case of no human being did happen to you. A cloud was stretched over you in place of a roof; a pillar instead of a lamp served to guide you; your enemies retreated of their own accord; cities were captured almost at the first battle shout. You had no need of weapons, no need of an army in array, no need to do battle. You had only to sound your trumpets, and the walls came tumbling down of their own accord. And you had a strange and marvelous food that the prophet spoke of when he exclaimed, God gave them the bread of heaven. The people ate the bread of angels; he sent them provisions in abundance.^[2]

See, O people, the grace of Christ about you. Even while you are harassed on earth, you have possessions in heaven. There, then, let your heart be, where your possession is. This is the rest that is due the just and is denied the unworthy. Wherefore says the Lord, As I swore in my wrath, that they shall not enter into my rest. For they who have not known the ways of the Lord shall not enter into the rest of the Lord, but to the individual who has fought the good fight and has finished his course it is said, Turn to your rest. It is a blessed rest to pass by the things of the world and to find repose in the celestial fellowship of the mysteries that are above the world. This is the rest toward which the prophet hastened, saying, Who will give me wings like a dove and I will fly and be at rest?^[1] The holy person knows that his rest is in heaven, and to this rest he says his soul must turn. Therefore his soul was in its rest, to which he says it must return. This is the rest of the great sabbath, in which each of the saints is above the sensible things of the world, devoting himself entirely to deep and invisible mystery and cleaving to God. This is that rest of the sabbath on which God rested from all the works of his world.