the mighty.”[1] “The moon shall blush, and the sun shall be ashamed:”[2] “because,” adds Cardinal Hugo, “they have served such masters,”[3] masters who have been ungrateful to their Creator. Now, according to St. Paul, creatures serve sinners against their will and as it were through force and necessity: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly;” therefore they groan under the yoke of their slavery, and sigh for the day when they shall be freed from it; “for we know that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in pain even till now.”[4] Sun, moon, and stars groan and complain at having to give their light to men to be misused in offending and insulting God; the earth, fire, water, air, beg, as it were, the Almighty to free them from the servitude in which they are to sinners.
For He will arm all creatures against them: the sun and stars. This shall be done at the end of the world, when all creatures are to be set at liberty and released from slavery, and then like a mighty army they will all rush in a body against the wicked to put them to shame, as we read in the Book of Wisdom: “And His zeal will take armor, and He will arm the creature for the revenge of His enemies.…and the whole world shall fight with Him against the unwise:”[5] The sun will declare war, as Tamerlane did of old, with a black banner spread; the moon colored like blood, and the stars disturbed out of their course shall begin the battle. We, they will say, have given our fair light for such a long time to sinners who were unworthy of it; we have marked for them the hours, days, weeks, months, and years; we have by our regularity in our motions set them a good example of the obedience they owe to God; but they preferred to follow the suggestions of the devil, the appetites of the flesh, the customs and maxims of the perverse world, instead of obeying the law of their Creator; they loved darkness more than the light; therefore our period of service is now at an end for them, and we shall be to them henceforth a source of nothing but fear and dread.
- ↑ Ecce dies Domini veniet, crudelis, et indignationis plenus, et iræ, furorisque, ad ponendam terram in solitudinem, et peccatores ejus conterendos de ea. Quoniam stellæ cœli, et splendor earum, non expandent lumen suum; obtenebratus est sol in ortu suo, et luna non splendebit in lumine suo. Et visitabo super orbis mala, et contra impios iniquitatem eorum; et quiescere faciam superbian infldelium, et arrogantian fortium humiliabo.—Is. xiii. 9–11.
- ↑ Erubescet luna, et confundetur sol.—Ibid. xxiv. 23.
- ↑ Quod talibus dominis servierunt.
- ↑ Vanitati enim creatura subjecta est non volens. Scimus enim quod omnis creatura ingemiscit, et parturit usque adhuc.—Rom. viii. 20, 22.
- ↑ Accipiet armaturam zelus illius, et armabit creaturam ad ultionem inimicorum,…et pugnabit cum illo orbis terrarum contra insensatos.—Wis. v. 18, 21.
