A novice ran away from his monastery carrying with him a valuable psalter which Antony had been using. He prayed for its recovery and the novice was frightened by a startling apparition into bringing it back. Instantly he forgets the hurt you did him, his anger is gone and he runs to embrace you. Thus it is with Christ. You have offended him by a mortal sin or wounded him by some fault, but you offer him the flower of contrition or the rose of a confession steeped in tears.
Tears are the blood of the soul.
His name is called Wonderful, Counsellor . . . In the moral sense, these words indicate the qualities of any penitent or good man. The good man is wonderful in his keen and frequent examination of his own conscience, for he sees strange things in the depths of his heart. The good man is a Counsellor in the spiritual and bodily necessities of his neighbor. The good man comes to the help of each.