For one, sorrows are intelligible, but for another they can harden. Such a person is more likely to be brought to his senses by unexpected happiness than by any loss. It is such a person that the prophet takes here and, as if fearing that a blow from above will soon follow, he prays: "Do not punish, but, as the Good One, teach me Thy goodness!"

And in medicine, not all medicines are bitter and not all plasters tear or burn: there are sweet medicines, there are plasters that have a pleasant effect. A good doctor, when he sees that he can use without pain without prejudice to treatment, always chooses the latter of his own accord, and even more so when he is asked to do so. How much more will our compassionate Heavenly Father act in this way, Who sees best of all what is good for whom? "Look at the physician," says St. Ambrose, "now he uses bitter medicines, cuts and cauterizations, sometimes pleasant and not producing anything painful. But when the patient, by his temperament, cannot endure painful treatment, it is the duty of the physician to avoid bitter medicines or to compose them in such a way that the bitter is hidden in the pleasant. This is how the Lord acts on us, healing our moral infirmities."

We are often confused by the question: why is the lot of people unequal? "No one has yet managed to explain it to the point of tangible evidence in detail. But the general law of God's providence in this respect is clearly revealed in the word of God, and moreover it is the most comforting. Wealth and poverty, glory and obscurity, prevailing domination and humble obedience, and all the rest with which human life on earth is dotted, are in the hands of God moral means. What suits someone best in this respect is given to him. A bright life is better — a bright one is served; better low - low is served; better average – average and given. And there is no way to enter into an argument: it is so good, and yet it is not at all so correct. And how do you know, maybe if you belittle his well-being, he will become even worse? Equally, it is impossible to say: if so-and-so were lucky, how much good would be from him! Did you know that if his condition improves, he himself will become better? Everyone is given such a fate in which alone he can do the greatest amount of good. With another fate, he cannot do so much, and to change it for the worse or for the better means to plunge him into essential evil. The goal of our existence on earth is moral perfection, in order to properly prepare ourselves for eternity. Everything is directed here by the Lord.

The complete clue to the diversity of our destinies will be there. There everyone will see how well everything was arranged, but here we still live in darkness. The wisest of all is he who, having completely committed his fate and all people into the hands of the Lord, keeps himself calm in relation to its inequality.

There is a legend that one lived by the labor of his hands and distributed everything that he produced to the poor, keeping to his share only as much as was necessary for subsistence; in the morning nothing was saved. One of the God-pleasing people, seeing how he did good, thought: what if he had prosperity, how much good he would do! — and he began to pray that God would send him contentment. God sent; but he, having become rich, not only did not help the poor, but drove them away from him with bitterness. Seeing this, he again prayed that the Lord would better return him to his former toiling life. The Lord returned it, and he again began to live as before, sharing what he had gained with the poor. In the same way would be all the other corrections of the fate of men, which we sometimes invent with our prudence and justice.

It is the same with regard to changes in parts: for some it is better to have a constantly even state, for others it is better to have it risen, then to decrease, and for others a one-time change from better to worse or from worse to better. Job is now extremely happy, now extremely unhappy, then happy again; Abraham lives all his life in complete contentment; Joseph from a slave becomes the ruler of an entire kingdom; Saul ends his life in misery and puts an end to the king's greatness for his entire family.

The Lord acts in this way not because He has the power and power to change the fate of people, but because it is best for them to act in this way, for their ultimate goals. And since the Lord leads to good by happiness, the prayer is also very appropriate: "Teach me Thy goodness, O Lord, by Thy justification."

Verse sixty-nine

"The iniquity of the proud shall abound upon me, but with all my heart I will test Thy commandments."

This verse and the next show how human vain contributes to moral perfection. In the hands of God, they also turn into instruments for the education of man and the teaching of his goodness.

The Saviour told the holy apostles, and in their person to all the faithful, that He would take them out of the world and that for this they would be hated by the world. If, says He, you were of the world, the world would love you as its offspring; but now, since I have taken you out of the world, the world will not cease to hate you. And so it always happens: whether or not a zealot for pleasing God comes into contact with the people of this world, the mere fact that he is such turns away from him those who live in self-gratification. And this is understandable: he denounces them with himself. They cannot deny that they themselves should be like him; But they can't stand it when they are reminded of it. And even though he says nothing to them, the thought of him, and even more so his presence, disturbs their consciences, which begin to gnaw at them; So he is to blame. Without meetings, hostility to him goes dull through the heart; but at the first meeting he is revealed by ill-will and a desire to interfere with everything and harm him; Desires turn into deeds, and the further, the more. Without guilt, a guilty God-fearing person is showered on all sides with reproaches, vainness, insults, insults. He cannot but see this, and although he endures it with good humor, he righteously testifies before God that it has multiplied against him, and human iniquity is multiplying more and more.

"Multiply." The prophet does not complain, but only testifies to this, in order to say: they are mine, and I mine. "The more diligently one works for the Lord," says St. Ambrose, "the more he arouses his enemies, like that courageous fighter who challenges against himself the most numerous rivals, so that, having overcome them, he may acquire the brightest crown of righteousness."

"Not true." That's what is encouraging that it's not true. That you endure sorrows, says St. Peter, do not worry much about this. Only take care that it is not through any fault of your own. But if you suffer only because you zealously serve the true God, then rejoice. "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are near: for the glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you. Inasmuch as ye partake of the passion of Christ, rejoice, that ye may also rejoice in the appearing of His glory that rejoices" (1 Pet. 4:13-14).

"Proud". The prophet calls proud in general those who live in oblivion of God, who do not want to know the commandments of God, but at the same time those who are strong in the earth, who hold some kind of power in their hands, or the noble and the rich. And in ordinary sinners, in their bad external circumstances, pride is the main cause of sin, and even more so in those who for some reason are higher than others. Man becomes conceited, and forgets God, and begins to despise His law. Then all God-fearing people and strict fulfillers of God's commandments no longer like him. But no matter how angry they are, I will "test Thy commandments with all my heart." "No matter how much unrighteousness increases," explains Blessed Augustine, "my love for Thy commandments will not fail. Thus says he who is sweetly taught in the justifications of God. Sweet are the commandments of God to him, and he examines them with love, so that he may do what he knows and learn what he has done; for what is known is more perfectly known when it is fulfilled by deed."