persons; rich and poor, noble and lowly, prince and peasant, master and servant, mistress and maid; great and small shall be cited before Him in the same order, without distinction of rank, and each one shall receive the reward or punishment due to his works. Therefore the Prophet Isaias calls this day cruel: “Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.”[1] The Prophet Joel calls it great and terrible: “The day of the Lord is great and very terrible: and who can stand it?”[2] “A day of darkness, and of gloominess, a day of clouds and whirlwinds: the like to it hath not been from the beginning, nor shall be after it.”[3] In the same sense the Prophet Amos speaks of this day: “Wo to them that desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? This day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.”[4] Sophonias calls it a day of wrath and misery: “The great day of the Lord is near.” And what sort of a day is it to be? “That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of cloud and whirlwind.”[5] In a word, it shall be a day on which the strict justice of God shall rule untempered by mercy, in order to humble the pride of men and to avenge His injured honor and glory.
Christ was despised and contemned by the world. Besides, how has not the honor of Jesus Christ suffered; how does it not still suffer among most men? Despised and contemned, publicly persecuted, unjustly condemned, He was seen hanging on a disgraceful cross in the presence of a multitude. The Jews still look on Him as a blasphemous imposter, who was justly sentenced by their forefathers on account of His crimes, and nailed to a cross; infidels refuse to acknowledge Him as their God; and how many wicked, proud, and tepid Catholic Christians are there not who are ashamed of Him and of His humble Gospel? Who hardly deign to bend the knee before His altar in the public churches where He is exposed for adoration?
- ↑ Ecce dies Domini veniet, crudelis, et indignationis plenus, et iræ, furorisque, ad ponendam terram in solitudinem, et peccatores ejus conterendos de ea.—Is. xiii. 9.
- ↑ Magnus enim dies Domini, et terribilis valde; et quis sutinebit eum?—Joel ii. 11.
- ↑ Dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nubis et turbinis: similis ei non fuit a principio, et post eum non erit.—Ibid. ii. 2.
- ↑ Væ desiderantibus diem Domini! Ad quid eam vobis? Dies Domini ista, tenebræ, et non lux.—Amos v. 18.
- ↑ Juxta est dies Domini magnus. Dies me dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiæ, dies calamitatis et miseriæ, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebulæ et turbinis.—Soph. i. 14, 15.
