for men, then ask them for the reward; but expect from God only the punishment reserved for hypocrites.
Every time you are praised, dread this saying of our Lord’s: ' Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.’ [1] A saying of such importance that Jesus Christ repeats it with reference to each action that He specially marks out in this chapter.
Remember what He said to the bad rich man — ' Thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime.’ [2] And elsewhere, in the parable of the Feast, ' Lest perhaps... a recompense be made to thee.’
Happy, then, are they whose lives are ' hid with Christ in God,’ [3] as St Paul has it: they whom the world knows not — who live in secret before God — who are content with His sight of them: for can there be greater folly or error than not to be satisfied with such an onlooker? They are ' as unknown’ says the same Apostle: — because their doings are not in the foolish talk of men: — but they are ' yet known.’ [4] God esteems them all the more because nobody thinks of them and they are as nothing on
