Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/216

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that benediction originally springs from God our Father, who for His part would that they also should have been blessed; but malediction originally springs from themselves and their sins, according to that of David: "He loved cursing, and it shall come unto him; and he would not have blessing, and it shall be far from him; and he put on cursing like a garment, and it went in like water into his entrails, and like oil into his bones." [1] Oh, how raging and mad will the wretches be to hear this horrid word of the eternal malediction! Oh, what a raving envy shall pierce their entrails, seeing that Almighty God blesses the righteous, without leaving them so much as one benediction! If Esau, on seeing that his younger brother, Jacob, had got the blessing, " irrugit clamore magno," " roared out with a great cry," [2] and, with fruitless tears, said to his father, "Hast thou not reserved me also a blessing?" how loud will those reprobates figured by Esau cry and roar when they shall see that the elect, figured by Jacob, have purchased the benediction of the heavenly Father, and that not even one blessing remains for them! With what rage will they confirm their own malediction; cursing the day in which they were born and the milk which they sucked, desiring rather never to have been born than to hear such a fearful and affrighting malediction!

Colloquy. — O most sweet Jesus, who, ascending the cross, tookest upon Thee " the curse of the law," [3] to deliver us from the curse of sin and eternal pain, favour me with Thy mercy, that upon me may not fall so terrible a misery! Amen.

iii. Pain of Sense.' — ' Into everlasting fire." — The third word is, " Into everlasting fire." In this He condemns them to the pain which is called the pain of sense, which is everlasting fire. As if He should say, " I separate you

  1. Ps. cviii. 18.
  2. Gen.xxvii. 34; ib. xxxvi.
  3. Gal. iii. 13.