“When my enemy shall be turned back: they shall be weakened, and perish before thy face. For thou hast maintained my judgment and my cause: thou hast sat on the throne, who judgest justice.”
One sees the enemy turned back in Christ’s firm declaration: “Begone, Satan” (Matthew 4:10), and St. John of the Cross teaches that the one that is in union with God is just as terrifying to the devil as Jesus Himself, because He is so present in their souls: “Resist the devil, and he will fly from you” (James 4:7). The enemy looks on those drunk on love: “Be inebriated, my dearly beloved” (Canticle 5:1), and from pure hatred seeks to rend the bond that is forming between God and His beloved: “And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy” (Apocalypse 13:1). It can also represent the old man, that is, you when you did not know God’s merciful love and lived according to the ways of earth; this is to remain in the background while you live in the present with your Beloved: “But one thing I do: forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those that are before” (Philippians 3:13), and when you are going confidently forward, the enemy cannot get a foothold as love keeps your defenses astute, but when you allow yourself to turn back to forgotten pleasures, he strikes, thus does Jesus exhort: “No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). By calling on Mary to crush the head of the snake: “She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Genesis 3:15), like a child that sees something threatening and cries out for aid, you draw closer to Mary and her maternal love, and so the pursuit of the enemy is made into something beneficial, and when the legions of hell see their leader struck down, they will fly: “And when all the army heard that Holofernes was beheaded, courage and counsel fled from them, and being seized with trembling and fear they thought only to save themselves by flight” (Judith 15:1). Just as darkness loses its imposing hold on the world as the sun begins to dawn, before being totally scattered, so too does the enemy and his fruits of sin and error scatter before the sun of God’s justice, goodness, power, and love: “His going out is from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof: and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat” (Psalm 18:7). To the spiritual warrior that prays the Psalms, they see the melting of sin and the devil’s influence in their lives beneath the mighty hand of love: “Thou hast stretched forth thy hand against the wrath of my enemies: and thy right hand hath saved me” (Psalm 137:7), the Holy Spirit being the wind in their sails, and this second point is what is meant by one’s cause being maintained, for walking in justice is not fruitlessly without a judge, as happens often on earth, but rather there is a mighty judge that stands behind those that are truly just, which are those that worship God in the truth and rubrics of the Catholic Church and treat every person they meet as a treasure to be loved: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’” (Galatians 5:14). God sees the one loving justly and gives them the grace to go forward bravely: “Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward” (Hebrews 10:35). In glorying in this Supreme Judge, who in His justice realized that man cannot lift himself out of the hole of sin, in mercifully reaches down to spring him from the grave which he had dug for himself, thus does the Psalmist say, “Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed” (Psalm 84:11). Thus, the Judge sits on his throne of your soul, Him being present in you by grace, and by following love’s perfume: “Will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments” (Canticle 1:3) within the commandments of God: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), this is to allow Him to build good counsel within you: “Establish within thyself a heart of good counsel: for there is no other thing of more worth to thee than it” (Ecclesiasticus 37:17), and thus He is seated on a glorious throne of you being fully alive, animated by love and sculpted by the Divine Artisan. Now, to say that it is Him that judges justice, this is because God is the source of justice, with true justice and flowing from Him and given to men that they may live their lives with the utmost beauty. To take justice from any other source is to look at a poor painting rather than the object itself, with the justice thereof being, at best, a cheap imitation. This virtue grows naturally through the life of love of God, and is a splendid adornment for the beauty of your soul, thus does the Psalmist sing in praise: “For the Lord is just, and hath loved justice” (Psalm 10:8). Seek then, Theophila, to wear justice as a linen robe, in imitation of your Beloved: “One like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet” (Apocalypse 1:13), by hearing the commandments of God and wearing them as golden earrings: “My soul hath kept thy testimonies: and hath loved them exceedingly” (Psaslm 118:167), and you will become magnificent in the eyes of Jesus: “Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me flee away,” (Canticle 6:4), finding your beauty irresistible.