Crucified Orator new file

your soul, entrust and commend it with trust into His protec- tion, guidance, and safekeeping. Call out to Him unceasingly: “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.” “Let my soul cleave to you. May your right hand protect me. May my soul be rescued by your power like a bird from the snares of hunters.” The conscience is connected to the soul. As long as the stain of vice does not taint it, it is cheerful, serene, and peaceful; it is a continual feast. However, as soon as [transgression ] is com- mitted, immediately a worm is born out of its decay and it in- cessantly gnaws, torments, and oppresses the sinner’s interior so that he seems to be carrying a living hell within him. It is a fable what poets devised about Tityus 17 that a vulture re- lentlessly devours his liver but never finishes it, because it always grows back. yet the vulture that tears the innards of sinners is both real and endures eternally. does not Isaiah express this rather clearly in these words: “For their worm shall not die” (Is 66:24)? Let us, however, enter the Elysian Fields 18 , so that we might un- derstand this even better. Here both sin and the worm of con- science were born for the first time, for man, created by God in the state of perfect innocence, was made king of paradise. When I mention the word “paradise,” I refer to a place replete with all things which can be thought or which were desirable in a truly lawful manner. What more can I say? It was a place of “pleasure” – as the sa- cred historian testifies. If only it had never been lost! But how quickly it happened! Scarcely was Adam stricken with the pesti- lence of sin, when he was immediately expelled from the flowery garden of delight. “The LOrd God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden” (Gen 3:23). The soul of the father of us all possessed the most pleasant and attractive paradise as long as it was not conscious of any offense. Having committed the trans- 17 Tityus, in Greek mythology, is one of the Giants. He was killed by an arrow of Apollo, who intended to insult his mother, the goddess Leto. In Tartarus, torn apart in eternal torment, he lay down stretched upon the ground, and vul- tures tore from him innards that always grew back. 18 Cf. Second Word , footnote 1. 75 T HE S EVENTH W Ord