On Repentance 10

Yet many either shun this work, as a public exposure of themselves, or put it off from day to day. I presume they are more mindful of shame than of salvation, like those who, having contracted some affliction in the more private parts of the body, avoid letting the physicians know, and so perish with their own bashfulness. It is unbearable to modesty, of course, to make satisfaction to the offended Lord, to be restored to a salvation that has been squandered! Truly, you are a fine one for modesty, putting on a bold face for sinning but withdrawing it for praying for mercy! I make no room for blushing when I gain more from its loss, when shame itself, in a way, exhorts a man, saying, “Do not look at me; it is better for me that I perish for your sake.” Its danger is burdensome, certainly, if at all, when it stands among people who will mock with jeering talk, where one man is raised up by another's ruin, where the fallen man is trampled on. But among brothers and fellow servants, where there is a common hope, fear, joy, grief, suffering, because there is a common Spirit from a common Lord and Father, why do you think these are anything other than yourself? Why do you flee those who share your misfortunes as if they would applaud them? The body cannot rejoice in the affliction of one member; the whole body must grieve with it and work together for its cure. In one and another is the church, and the church is Christ. So when you stretch yourself out at the knees of the brothers, you are touching Christ, you are entreating Christ. Likewise, when they shed tears over you, it is Christ who suffers, Christ who implores the Father. What the Son asks is always easily obtained. Concealment of sin promises, to be sure, a great advantage to modesty! Of course, if we withdraw something from human knowledge, shall we likewise hide it from God? Is the opinion of men to be compared with God's knowledge? Is it better to be damned in secret than to be absolved in public? It is wretched to come to exomologesis like this! Yes, for one comes to wretchedness through evil; but where one must repent, the wretchedness ceases, because it has become saving. It is wretched to be cut, and burned with the cautery, and tormented by the sting of some powder; yet treatments that heal by unpleasantness excuse the offense they give by the benefit of the cure, and commend the present hurt for the sake of the benefit to come.